For Women, Cancer Death Rate Is Down But New Cases on the Rise

New data from the National Cancer Institute show that from 2015 to 2019 overall cancer death rates continued to decline among men, women, children, and adolescents and young adults in every major racial and ethnic group in the United States. Among men, death rates decreased by 2.3 percent per year; among women, death rates decreased by 1.9 percent per year.

This good news is tempered by the fact that from 2014 to 2018, overall cancer incidence, or new cases of cancer,  increased for women. For women, incidence rates increased for seven of the 18 most common cancers: liver, melanoma, kidney, myeloma, pancreas, breast, and oral cavity and pharynx. In women, melanoma had the steepest increase in incidence, rising by 1.8 percent per year, and thyroid cancer had the sharpest decrease, falling by 2.9 percent per year.

The report estimated that there will be more than 287,000 new cases of breast cancer among women in 2022. This is 15 percent of all new cancer cases among women. The study estimated that more than 43,000 women will die from breast cancer this year. This will represent 7.1 percent of all cancer death among women.

Approximately 12.9 percent of all women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point during their lifetime, based on 2017–2019 data. In 2019, there were an estimated 3,771,794 women living with breast cancer in the United States. More than 90 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer can expect to live for at least five years.