Hello, I am Dr Hannah Weir, a senior epidemiologist
in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control at CDC.
Today, I want to tell you about our work
that was recently published
in the journals Preventing Chronic Disease and Cancer.
We projected trends in new cancer cases and cancer deaths
in the United States to the year 2020.
The purpose of these projections is to provide data
to policy makers and health planners
to help them anticipate the resources that they will need
to screen, diagnose and treat future cancer patients.
In a few years, cancer is predicted
to surpass heart disease and become the leading cause
of death in the United States.
To help us address the growing cancer burden,
CDC and its partners developed Healthy People 2020 objectives
which call for a 10 to 15% reduction in cancer death rates
between 2007 and 2020.
In this study published in this journal,
we predicted future cancer death rates to measure our progress
in meeting these objectives.
The death rate measures the risk
to the average person of dying from cancer.
Our projections are important
because they predict cancer death rates AND the number
of people dying from cancer.
We used population projections from the US Census Bureau
and mortality data from the CDC's National Vital Statistics
System to predict many common cancers.
We used age-period-cohort regression models
to help us identify trends in younger birth cohorts.
We then used these trends to predict cancer rates
as these cohorts grow older.
We performed these analyses using Nordpred software
developed by the Cancer Registry of Norway.
Much of the news from our study is encouraging.
In 2010, we had a rate
of 171 cancer deaths per 100,000 people.
Our projections show
that overall cancer death rates are decreasing.
And in fact, we expect to meet the Healthy People 2020 goal
of reducing the cancer death rate
to 161 deaths per 100,000 people well before 2020.
And we predict a continued reduction in risk through 2020.
BUT at the same time, we project that the actual number
of people dying from many leading cancers will continue
to increase steadily each year.
By the year 2020, we predict
that almost 630,000 people will die from cancer that year.
In another study we published earlier this year
in the journal Cancer, we used similar methods
to predict new cancer cases and cancer incidence rates.
The cancer incidence rate measures the risk
to the average person of being diagnosed with cancer.
As you can see, we predict
that the overall cancer incidence rate (or average risk)
will remain about the same between 2010 and 2020.
However, like cancer deaths,
the number of new cancer cases is expected
to increase each year -from 1.5 million new cases in 2010
to 1.9 million new cases in 2020.
Only 5 years from now- we will be seeing almost 2 million new
cases of cancer each year.
When we look at the leading cancers,
we predict the greatest increase in the number
of new cases will be for prostate cancer in men
and breast cancer in women.
Cancers of the lung and bronchus and colon
and rectum will also increase,
but the increases will be not as great.
We predict that we will continue to see increases
in new cancer cases and cancer deaths each year.
The reasons for these increases relate to the US population.
The size of the US population is increasing and more people
than ever are entering older age groups - where the risk
of being diagnosed or dying from cancer is greatest.
In addition, life expectancy is increasing
and people are living longer.
We want older people to live longer, healthier lives.
And cancer does not need
to be an inevitable consequence of growing older.
We can reduce the number of people getting cancer
through prevention and the number of people dying
from cancer through screening and treatment.
CDC will continue to monitor the number
of new cancers and cancer deaths.
You can read more about our work in these two publications.
We also invite you to visit the CDC Cancer website to learn more
about our research and our public health programs.