Cancer deaths continue to decline, according to the nation's annual report.

According to the 2024 Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, overall cancer death rates decreased steadily for both men and women from 2001 to 2022, even during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2001 to 2013, men's overall cancer incidence, measured as the rate of new cancer diagnoses, decreased, then stabilized until 2021. Among women, overall cancer incidence increased slightly every year from 2003 through 2021, with the exception of 2020. Cancer, on April 21, 2025, published the study. Progress in reducing cancer deaths overall is largely the result of declines in both incidence and death rates for lung cancer and several other smoking-related cancers, the researchers noted. Over the past two decades, for instance, both male and female lung cancer new diagnoses and deaths have decreased. In the meantime, the prevalence of cancers linked to obesity has been rising. Cancers of the female uterus, pancreas, kidney, and liver are among these. During the study period, new breast cancer diagnoses gradually increased, but the overall death rate from breast cancer decreased, according to the report. Over the course of the study, cancer death rates for children decreased steadily, as did rates for adolescents and young adults, until recently, when the decline slowed and stabilized. From 2018 to 2022, cancer deaths decreased for each major racial and ethnic population group. The incidence of cancer among men in each major racial and ethnic population group remained stable from 2017 to 2021 (excluding 2020), but it increased among women in each major racial and ethnic population group. During the same time period, among men, incidence was highest in non-Hispanic Black men, whereas among women, incidence was highest in American Indian and Alaska Native women.

The report also included an analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on observed cancer incidence in individual states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico for the first two years of the pandemic. The pandemic's effects on health care likely contributed to a sharp drop in cancer incidence in 2020, but by 2021, it had returned to pre-pandemic levels. The magnitude of the 2020 decline was similar across states, despite variations in COVID-19 policy restrictions. The researchers noted that these findings underscore the importance of providing access to health care, even during public health emergencies, to ensure the timely diagnosis of cancer.

The Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer is a collaborative effort among the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the American Cancer Society (ACS); and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR). The report provides annual updates on cancer trends in the United States.

The report is based on cancer incidence data from population-based cancer registries, funded by CDC and NCI and compiled by NAACCR, and on cancer death data from the National Center for Health Statistics’ National Vital Statistics System.The article "Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, Featuring State-Level Statistics After the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic" will be published in Cancer on April 21, 2025. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are responsible for reducing cancer incidence and improving quality of life for cancer patients and their families. The American Cancer Society (ACS) is a grassroots organization with 1.5 million volunteers working to prevent, detect, treat, and think about cancer. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides timely information and responds to diseases, while the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries promotes cancer surveillance data and systems for cancer control and epidemiologic research. The NIH is the federal agency responsible for medical research, with 27 Institutes and Centers in the United States.