Mortality
Death rates are decreasing for all major cancers in women except for lung cancer. The death rate decline is -0.8% per 100,000 from 1994-2002, and -1.8% from 2002-2004. Lung, breast, and colorectal cancers have the highest mortality rates in women.
- Approximately 270,100 women in the U.S. will die of cancer in 2007.
- Most lung cancers are caused by tobacco use, the leading preventable cause of premature death in the U.S.
- Overall, lung cancer mortality rates for women continue to increase, but more slowly since 1995.
- White women have the highest lung cancer mortality rate.
- Women who quit smoking in their 40s have one-third less risk of dying from lung cancer as women who continue to smoke.
- Death rates from breast cancer began decreasing in the early 1990s.
- Hispanic women have higher rates than Asian & Pacific Island women.
- The death rate for breast cancer in black women is higher than for white women, with steeper declines reported among white women. As a result, the differential in mortality is widening.
- Overall, colorectal cancer mortality rates in women have been declining since 1975.
- From 1995-2004, mortality rates for Hispanic women decreased the least of all racial/ethnic groups.
Rates are age-adjusted to the 2000 U.S. Std Population (19 age groups — Census P25-1130), unless noted.
Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program (www.seer.cancer.gov) SEER*Stat Database: Mortality — All COD,
Public-Use With State, Total U.S. (1969-2004), National Cancer Institute, DCCPS, Surveillance Research Program, Cancer
Statistics Branch, released April 2007. Underlying mortality data provided by NCHS (www.cdc.gov/nchs/).
Source: NCHS public use data file for the total U.S. Rates are age-adjusted to the 2000 U.S. Std Population (19 age groups - Census P25-1103).
a Mortality rates for American Indian/Alaska Native are based on the CHSDA (Contract Health Service Delivery Area) countries in the total U.S.
b Hispanic is not mutually exclusive from Whites, Blacks, Asian/Pacific Islanders, and American Indians/Alaska Natives. Mortality data for
Hispanics excludes cases from Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Vermont.
Additional Information
- SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results)
- Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2003
- Cancer Trends Progress Report — 2005 Update
- Cancer Trends Progress Report — 2005 Update: End of Life
- United States Cancer Statistics: 2003 Incidence and Mortality (NCI, CDC)
- State Cancer Profiles (NCI, CDC)
- Health, United States, 2006 (CDC)
(Death rates for malignant neoplasms, according to sex, race, Hispanic origin, and age 1950-2004)
- Healthy Women: State Trends in Health and Mortality (2004, CDC)
- Cancer Facts and Figures 2007 (American Cancer Society)
