Cancer Facts and Figures 2008

From the Annual Report of the American Cancer Society we learn that cancer death rates have decreased by 18.4% among men and 10.5% among women since the early 1990s. But while reports from the last two years have seen declines in the overall number of cancer deaths (in 2003 and 2004), this year's report examining 2005 data shows an increase (559,312 cancer deaths in 2005 compared to 553,888 in 2004). Cancer mortality rates continue to drop and they're doing so at a rate fast enough that over half a million deaths from cancer were averted between 1990/1991 and 2004."