The racial gap in cancer mortality is continuing to narrow -- so it was that the cancer death rate in blacks was 33 % higher than in whites in the mid-1990s, and the current data now indicate it's 14 % higher -- so it's still higher, but the gap is narrowing, which is really good news.

Rebecca Siegel

Categorized in : Top News

It was surprising to see that the disparities by socioeconomic status are actually widening, wealth causes differences in exposure to risk factors and also access to high-quality cancer prevention, early detection and treatment.

The continued decline in the cancer death rate over the past 25 years is really good news and was a little bit of a surprise, only because the other leading causes of death in the US are starting to flatten. So we've been wondering if that's going to happen for cancer as well, but so far it hasn't.

We really don't know much at all about what causes these cancers, we've had a great impact on mortality because of improvements in treatment and hopefully that will continue but I think there is room for improvement in understanding the etiology of these cancers and trying to prevent their occurrence.

The declines in mortality are driven by improvement in treatment which have been rapid, particularly for leukemia which represents almost a third of childhood cancers.

There has not been as much progress for some of the more rare childhood cancers but they're harder to study because, again, they are rare so it's more difficult to make progress for cancers that aren't affecting very many kids.

A childhood cancer diagnosis used to be a death sentence. by Rebecca Siegel

A childhood cancer diagnosis used to be a death sentence.

The improvements in cancer prevention and early detection and treatment aren’t disseminated equally among the population, extending these improvements to underserved populations would accelerate a decline in death rates.

A lot of progress has been made, but there is more work to do. by Rebecca Siegel

A lot of progress has been made, but there is more work to do.

While smoking prevalence continues to slowly decline, the use of alternative tobacco products is on the rise.

Although we ca n’t know exactly how many people are not starting to smoke cigarettes because they are using other tobacco products, e-cigarettes are now the most common form of tobacco use among high school students.