Cancer Death Rates Fall

By Olivia Kriz/GG Staff

Cancer is the second leading cause of death according to cbsnews.com. Thomlatimercares.org said 564,800 Americans die a year because of cancer.

It’s an ongoing disease that affects millions every year. Doctors are continuing to try and perfect treatment so a cure can be found.

But over the last 25 years, cancer death rates have gone down according to livescience.com.

The website said 2.1 million fewer people have died from cancer since 1991. Researchers said the drop is due to reductions in the number of people smoking and advances in finding the cancer early.

According to the report, cancer deaths dropped  from 215 deaths out of 100,000 people in 1991, to 161 deaths out of 100,000 people in 2014. That’s a change of 90 people within a 23 year span.

There was also a reduction in four types of cancer, breast, prostate, lung, and colorectal. These four played a major part in the total decline. For example, lung cancer deaths in men between 1990 and 2014 decreased by 43 percent according to the report. Lung cancer deaths in women  decreased by 17 percent between the years of 2002 and 2014.

Sophomore Kaylie Trumble said, “ I think that it’s amazing that we’re making advances in the medical field and I think that it’d be even better to lower those rates even more.”

Losing someone to cancer can be tough. It’s an emotional time and it’s hard to get by. People get things to remember them by. It can be anything from a picture or a memorial. Sophomore Olyvia Hillman got a tattoo in remembrance of her grandma who has Stage 4 Lung Cancer. Her grandma has a 5 percent chance to live and has repeatedly done chemotherapy and radiation to try and stop the cancer from spreading.

Hillman said, “I chose to get my tattoo in remembrance, because I won’t get to be with her for very long and I wanted to do it while she’s still with us.”

Researchers predict that in 2017 there will be more than 1.6 million new cases of cancer in the US. That’s about 4,600 new diagnoses each day. Also more than 600,000 deaths, which is about 1,650 deaths per day.

According to Livescience.com, men are 20 percent more likely to get cancer than women, and they have a 40 percent higher chance of dying from cancer. The difference is from the different types of cancer that affect men and women. But don’t worry boys, researchers have noted that it has declined 2 percent from 1991 to 2014.

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Cancer Death Rates Fall