Watch original video:

The United States has passed an important milestone in the fight against cancer, marking for the first period simultaneous declines in new cancer cases and cancer-death rates for men and women.

From 1999 through 2005, cancer incidence

Experts at leading cancer organizations heralded the development as long as noting that new data need to subsist interpreted with caution. In particular, they said fewer men and women are being screened according to prostate and breast cancer and that can result in fewer tumors heart identified.

“The drop in incidence … is something we have been tarrying to see for a long time,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. And “the continuing drop in mortality is evidence once again of real progress made in countervail to cancer, reflective real gains in stoppage, early detection and treatment.”

The declines may be temporary, said Dr. Robert Figlin, of the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif. “Baby boomers are reaching the age at which they bring out cancer … so we should not be surprised if it changes direction again.”

Researchers too apprehend that the economic meltdown may trigger a new increase in incidence as fewer people be wrought up comfortable paying since screening tests and increased stress leads more lower classes to resume smoking.

Incidence rates for entirely cancers in men and women dropped by 0.8 percent a year from 1999 through 2005, by the rates since men dropping at about three times the rate for women. The only heathen groups in favor of which rates did not decline were American Indians and Alaska natives.

The overall death rate declined through any average of 1.8 percent a year during the like period.

Currently, about 1.4 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer each year, and an estimated 560,000 die of it.

The decline in incidence and death rates was due in large part to declines in five of the six greatest in quantity common cancers: lung, colorectal and prostate in men and affections and colorectal cancer in women. The sixth most common form, lung cancer in women, leveled off.

Those cancers unaccompanied account for from one seat to another half of new cases and deaths.

“Lung cancer is the big one when it comes to cancer in the United States,” said Dr. John Glaspy of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. The declines in lung cancer are due primarily to widespread reductions in smoking.

“It’s very tough for anybody not to conclude that convivial trends [against] smoking are having major effects on man’s life.”

The decline in breast-cancer incidence is utmost likely due to the sharply reduced use of hormone-replacement therapy beginning in 2002, as has been noted in several antecedent studies.

The drop in colon and rectal cancer, the report says, most to be expected stems from increases in screening, which leads to the identification and ejection of polyps before they become cancerous.

It is not clear why the incidence of prostate cancer has declined, but it may be a rise of a leveling off in screening since 2002, the report’s authors reported.

Overall, the incidence rates dropped for 10 of the top 15 cancers.

Some experts said the decrease in new cases is primarily the outcome of a send down in lung cancer, which is due to declines in smoking that occurred decades gone. They criticized the point of concentration on detecting and treating cancer and called for more point of concentration on prevention.

“The whole cancer establishment has been focused on usage, which has not been terribly bringing into being,” said John Bailar, who studies cancer trends at the National Academy of Sciences.

Bailar and others said research should emphasize identifying the causes of cancer, such as environmental exposures, to prevent cancer from occurring in the first place.

Not all the intelligence is good.

For men, the incidence is rising for cancers of the liver, kidney and esophagus, and for melanoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and myeloma. For women, the incidence is rising for cancers of the thyroid, pancreas and brain and nervous system, and for leukemia.

“This report gives us a better understanding of where we may need to reduplicate our efforts and try to provide new ways of preventing … kidney, liver and other cancers that continue to show increases in both mortality and incidence,” said Dr. John Niederhuber, director of the National Cancer Institute.

For the report, researchers analyzed data collected betwixt 1975 and 2005 in ongoing surveys and cancer registries that federal officials use to track cancer trends.

Original text: {news-link}