Cancer Death Rates Fall

With a new year comes renewed hope. News released this week fans the flame of hope in anyone that knows the sting of cancer. The American Cancer Society reports that the “death rate from cancer in the US declined by 29% from 1991 to 2017, including a 2.2% drop from 2016 to 2017, the largest single-year drop ever recorded.” Taking a closer look at specific types of cancer finds that breast cancer death rates declined 40% from 1989 to 2017 and prostate cancer death rates declined 52% from 1993 to 2017. Pause for a moment to consider those figures. These statistics reinforce that cancer is no longer a swift death sentence; in many cases it is a manageable chronic condition.

These tremendous gains in cancer survivorship are rooted in the convergence of healthier lifestyles, early detection and targeted therapies. To maintain this positive momentum we must nurture each of these elements and recognize that one cannot be substituted at the sake of another. For these reasons, in this new year Patients + Providers United will continue to call for patient access to innovative effective treatment options that complement the personalized plan of care developed cooperatively between a physician, patient and caregiver. When a government bureaucrat focused on cost containment, instead of a patient’s own physician, makes treatment decisions, patients suffer.