Report Shows Declining Cancer Mortality Rates but Concerning Trends for Women

January 24, 2025

New studies show fewer people are dying from cancer but also identify an uptick in women diagnosed with the disease, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). The new findings indicate that many types of the disease are increasing, especially among women and younger adults.

“Continued reductions in cancer mortality because of drops in smoking, better treatment, and earlier detection is certainly great news,” said Rebecca Siegel, senior scientific director, surveillance research at the ACS and lead author of the report. “However, this progress is tempered by rising incidence in young and middle-aged women, who are often the family caregivers, and a shifting cancer burden from men to women, harkening back to the early 1900s when cancer was more common in women.”

Here are some key points to know:

• Despite overall declines in cancer mortality, death rates are increasing for cancers of the oral cavity, pancreas, uterine corpus, and liver (among women).
• Additionally, alarming inequalities in cancer mortality persist, with rates in Native American people two to three times higher than white people for kidney, liver, stomach, and cervical cancers. Black people are twice as likely to die of prostate, stomach, and uterine corpus cancers compared to white people and 50 percent more likely to die from cervical cancer, which is preventable.
• Incidence rates continue to climb for common cancers, including breast (female), prostate, pancreatic, uterine corpus, melanoma (female), liver (female), and oral cancers associated with the human papillomavirus.
• The rate of new diagnoses of colorectal cancer in men and women younger than 65 and cervical cancer in women 30–44 has also increased.
• Cancer incidence in children 14 and under declined in recent years after decades of increase, but continued to rise among adolescents. Mortality rates have dropped by 70 percent in children and by 63 percent in adolescents since 1970, largely because of improved treatment for leukemia.

“This report underscores the need to increase investment in both cancer treatment and care, including equitable screening programs, especially for underserved groups of patients and survivors. Screening programs are a critical component of early detection, and expanding access to these services will save countless lives,” said Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick, interim chief executive officer for ACS. “We also must address these shifts in cancer incidence, mainly among women. A concerted effort between healthcare providers, policymakers and communities needs to be prioritized to assess where and why mortality rates are rising.”

The report alongside its consumer-friendly companion fact sheets are available online.