The American Cancer Society reports many new cancers but not rising deaths, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:03 — 1.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

The annual analysis of the American Cancer Society reports that while the overall number of new cancers diagnosed is higher than last year, deaths from cancers are not rising along with the new cases. Sidney Kimmel Cancer center director William Nelson at Johns Hopkins says overall, that’s good news.

Nelson: New cancer cases in 2023 was in excess of 2 million new cancer diagnosis. That's up from about 1.9 million the year before. Some of that's driven by more screening. Cancer deaths have not been rising at that same rate and they estimate if it had continued on the trajectory that it was on it's something like 4 million deaths has been averted since that time. What contributes to that, some smoking cessation, some improvements of treatment particularly in lung cancer and melanoma.    :30

Nelson says people need to continue to get screened at appropriate intervals so cancers can be detected at their most treatable stage. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.