Which Cancers Have The Highest Mortality Rates?

In both the US and the world as a whole, lung cancer is the biggest killer. It was responsible for 1.8 million deaths globally in 2022 – roughly equivalent to one in five cancer-related deaths. This includes an estimated 1,30,180 in the US. 

Worldwide, statistics from the Global Cancer Observatory reveal colon and rectum (903,859), liver (757,948), breast (female) (665,684) and stomach (659,853) present the second, third, fourth and fifth highest rates of mortality respectively. This is slightly different in the US, where estimates from the American Cancer Society show colon and rectum (52,580), pancreas (49,830), breast (43,780) and prostate (34,500) have the highest rates of mortality respectively. 

However, high mortality rates in the sense of the highest number of deaths caused by a given cancer is not the same as survival rates. Breast cancer has one of the highest mortality rates in the US but it is also one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in the US. According to the Cleveland Clinic, it also has one of the highest five-year survival rates (99.3%). In contrast, cancers with the lowest survival rates include brain cancer (36%), liver cancer and intrahepatic bile cancer (37.3%), pancreatic cancer (44.3%) and esophageal cancer (48.8%). 

It is important to note that mortality rates and survival rates can also vary significantly by gender, race and geography. According to the National Cancer Institute, cancer mortality is notably higher in men (173.2 per 100,000) than in women (126.4 per 100,000), with non-Hispanic black men having the highest mortality rates of all (208.3 per 100,000). In contrast, non-Hispanic Asian/Pacific Islander women have the lowest (82.6 deaths per 100,000). There are also significant disparities between states. According to the American Cancer Society, mortality rates between 2018 and 2022 were dramatically higher in Mississippi (223 per 100,000) than in Hawaii (144.9 per 100,000), highlighting disparities in healthcare access based on demographics and location.

In better news, advances in diagnosis and treatment as well as lifestyle changes, such as lower rates of smoking, have led to an overall decline in cancer deaths in the US. Between 2013 and 2022, mortality rates have fallen 1.7% a year. There are also several promising treatments in the pipeline, from new drugs that halt disease progression to technology that appears to convert cancer cells into a non-malignant form. Meanwhile, experimental personalized vaccines that use a person’s own immune system to develop antibodies against their own particular form of cancer are also in the works and are already being trialed on cancer patients in the UK and US.

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The content of this article is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.