Improvements in treatments for NSCLC, blood cancers, and melanoma continue to accelerate annual drop in overall cancer mortality rates
Source: THE CANCER LETTER, January 2021
Overall cancer mortality rates in the United States continued to drop precipitously, falling by 2.4% from 2017-2018, according to the American Cancer Society’s latest Cancer Statistics report.
The Jan. 12 report notes that this drop, 2.4%, is the largest ever, greater than the previous year’s impressive 2.2% decline for 2016-2017—the largest one-year drop to date at the time (The Cancer Letter, Feb. 7, 2020).
New treatments for NSCLC are a primary contributor to the accelerating declines in lung cancer mortality, the main driver for the multi-decade drops in overall cancer mortality, the report said.