More women and younger adults getting cancer

Mortality rates for cancer continue to decline. The American Cancer Society’s annual report says there was a 34% decrease in deaths between 1991 and 2022, but the report isn’t all good news.

There is a concerning trend. That trend is more women and younger adults are being diagnosed with cancer.

Dr. Dale Shepard with the Cleveland Clinic, said, “Overall younger, younger patients in general, men and women, are having more and more cancers, and the reality is we don’t necessarily know the reason for that. That’s an area of active study. There is one reason that maybe more women are having increased cancers compared to men that we haven’t seen the same benefits in women is really a preventable cause, and that’s continued smoking.”

Shepard was not a part of the research for the report; however, he says lung cancer cases are actually now higher in women than in men among people younger than 65.

Colorectal cancer cases for adults younger than 65 and cervical cancer cases for women between 30 and 44 have also gone up.

In addition, the report found that pancreatic cancer remains the third leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States.

Doctor Shepard said that, unlike lung cancer, for example, there is no early screening available for pancreatic cancer and treatment options are limited, so what can be done to help change these trends?

“Even though we’ve made progress, we can make even more progress if people do lifestyle modifications that can decrease their risk for cancer. That would be stopping smoking, minimizing alcohol exposure, getting screenings when appropriate, follow up with your doctor if there’s symptoms for earlier detection and minimizing obesity,” he said.

The American Cancer Society report also noted some racial disparities. Native American people are two to three times more likely than white people to die from kidney, liver, stomach and cervical cancers, and Black people are twice as likely to die from prostate, stomach and uterine corpus cancer compared to white people.