Cancer statistics, 2023

Each year, the American Cancer Society estimates the number of new cancer cases and deaths in the United States and compiles the most recent data on population‐based cancer occurrence and outcomes using incidence data collected by central cancer registries and mortality data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics. Cancer incidence increased for prostate cancer by 3% annually from 2014 through 2019 after two decades of decline, translating to an additional 99,000 new cases; otherwise, however, incidence trends were more favorable in men compared to women. Despite the pandemic, and in contrast with other leading causes of death, the cancer death rate continued to decline from 2019 to 2020 (by 1.5%), contributing to a 33% overall reduction since 1991 and an estimated 3.8 million deaths averted. This progress increasingly reflects advances in treatment, which are particularly evident in the rapid declines in mortality (approximately 2% annually from 2016 through 2020) for leukemia, melanoma, and kidney cancer, despite stable/increasing incidence, and accelerated declines for lung cancer. In summary, although cancer mortality rates continue to decline, future progress may be attenuated by the rising incidence of breast, prostate, and uterine corpus cancers, which also happen to have the largest racial disparities in mortality.