For the first time, cancer has surpassed heart disease as the top killer of Americans younger than 85, health officials said yesterday.
The reason is that while the number of deaths from both causes has fallen, the improvement has been more marked for heart disease.
"It's dropping fast enough that another disease is eclipsing it," Dr. Walter Tsou, president of the American Public Health Association, said of the incidence of heart disease.
The shift was described in the American Cancer Society's annual statistical report, released yesterday. In 2002, the most recent year for which information is available, 476,009 Americans younger than 85 died of cancer, compared with 450,637 who died of heart disease.
That trend began in 1999, but "this is the first time we've looked at this by age," said Ahmedin Jemal, an epidemiologist for the cancer society and the report's main author.
People younger than 85 account for 98.4 percent of the population, said Dr. Eric Feuer, chief of statistical research for the National Cancer Institute, who worked on the report.
The biggest reason for the drop in deaths from both causes, the report found, was that fewer people were smokers. Smoking among American adults fell sharply between 1965 and 2000, to 22 percent from 42 percent.
A third of all cancers are related to smoking, and another third are related to obesity, poor diet and lack of exercise - all factors that also contribute to heart disease.
Other highlights of the report:
¶An estimated 1,372,910 new cancer cases and 570,260 cancer deaths are expected this year. Five-year survival rates have risen to 74 percent, from 50 percent in the 1970's.
¶Lung cancer remains the biggest killer, projected to claim 163,510 lives this year.
¶Prostate cancer will be diagnosed in about 232,090 men in 2005, and it will kill 30,350.
¶Breast cancer will be diagnosed in about 211,240 women, and the disease will kill 40,410.
Cancer death rates have declined about 1 percent each year since 1999, thanks to earlier detection, prevention efforts and better treatments, experts said.
8/13/05 - It's probably not a great idea not to go to your medical appoitment when you get the best job they could have probably offered you, just because you want to mantein that perfect record of never taking a blood test.
