Cancer survival: then and now

Thanks to increased awareness and major advances in medical research over the last 30 years, cancer survival rates have drastically improved. Let’s keep doing our part to fund organizations working hard to find cures and share information so that the number of deaths from cancer in the United States continues to decrease.

Prostate cancer
Prostate cancer mortality rates among men decreased by 52% between 1993 and 2015, thanks to the introduction of routine prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screenings.

Colorectal cancer
Thanks to improvements in treatments and screenings, colorectal cancer mortality rates decreased by 52% between 1970 and 2015.

Lung cancer
The leading cancer killer in the United States, lung cancer mortality rates decreased by 45% from 1990 to 2015 among men and 19% from 2002 to 2015 among women. The decline can be attributed to greater public awareness about the dangers of smoking tobacco.

Breast cancer
Breast cancer mortality rates decreased by 39% between 1989 and 2015. This progress is due to increased emphasis on early detection and advances in mammography.