Cancer Death Rates Decline – Across The Board

But especially among the young. These are results for the United States, looked at the numbers with a different methodology than has been used for decades – and the news is very good:

Cancer death rates are declining, especially among younger people, new research shows.

And while cancer is poised to become the number one killer in the United States, topping heart disease, that is because deaths from heart disease have decreased faster than for cancer.

“Older Americans have only experienced decreased [cancer] mortality very recently, but younger Americans have been seeing benefits for a long time so, as a result, everyone born in the last 60 years has been reaping the benefits of efforts in prevention research and treatment research and early detection research,” said Dr. Eric Kort, lead author of a study appearing in the Aug. 15 issue of Cancer Research.

Kort, a pediatrics resident at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids, Mich., completed the study while a research scientist at the Van Andel Research Institute, also in Grand Rapids.

The study broke the population up into age groups instead of using everyone all at once – which tends to skew the results since older people still make up the bulk of cancer victims.

The youngest age group showed the most improvement, with a 25.9% decline in death rates for each successive decade, while death rates in the older age groups decreased a respectable 6.8% each decade. The difference likely reflects early advances in cancer treatment affecting malignancies, such as childhood leukemia, seen in younger people.

I really had not thought about how they were producing the numbers on death rates until I read this. Then it was glaringly obvious that the old methodology was flawed. As is so often the case, it is obvious once it is pointed out – but it takes someone with real skill and talent to see it the first time. Kudos to Dr. Eric Kort and his associates for seeing it.

Now tell me again why the US medical system is so broken.