Washingtonpost.com – according to an annual report that tracks progress in the war on cancer; The pace at which Americans are getting cancer has started to decline, marking what could be a long-awaited turning point in the battle against the disease.
Cancer deaths have also continued a decline that began in the early 1990s, meaning that for the first time both trend lines are dropping.
“It is a significant milestone,” said Otis W. Brawley, chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society, which produces the report with the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries.
The analysis found that the overall incidence of cancer began inching down in 1999, but not until the data for 2005 were analyzed was it clear that a long-term decline was underway.
“The take-home message is that many of the things we’ve been telling people to do to be healthy have finally reached the point where we can say that they are working,” Brawley said. “These things are really starting to pay off.”
However, Cancer is still being diagnosed in about 1.4 million Americans each year, and 560,000 die from it.
