U.S. cancer incidence, mortality and survival: 1973-1996.

Earlier predictions of morbidity and mortality improvements for the four leading sites of cancer are beginning to occur. After decades of increases, incidence and mortality rates for all cancers combined have declined since 1992. Between 1990 and 1996 the age-adjusted death rates for all cancers had dropped 3.7 percent to 166.9 per 100,000 and incidence rates had decreased 2.8 percent to 388.6. The overall decreases were greater among men than women; male mortality rates dropped 6.2 percent and incidence dropped 5.2 percent for men versus 1.8 and 1.9 percent, respectively, for women. Lung cancer incidence among men continued its more than 10-year decline in age-adjusted rates and mortality rates dropped for a fifth consecutive year to 68.2 per 100,000 population. Among women, lung cancer incidence rates began to plateau in the mid-1990s similar to the pattern experienced by men a decade earlier. The rates of prostate cancer have begun to decrease but remain 65 to 75 percent higher among black men than white. Mortality rates dropped 9.5 percent among white men but only 2.0 percent among blacks since 1990. By 1996 even breast cancer death rates were declining ahead of the predicted decrease by the end of the century. Mortality rates for all women combined was 24.3 per 100,000 population, 24.0 for white women and 30.8 for blacks, 11.3, 12.1 and 2.5 percent, respectively lower than in 1990. The previously noted decreases in colorectal cancer mortality and incidence continue with age-adjusted rates dropping to 16.8 and 42.7 per 100,000 population, respectively, in 1996.