BHC’s April 25th Community Forum, On the Cusp of a Cure: Advances in Cancer Treatment, is just around the corner. Cancer is and has been the second leading cause of death in the United States since 1938. In preparing for the program, I found some jarring, yet uplifting, statistics. 
  

• U.S. cancer deaths increased almost every year during the 20th century. It’s hard to imagine but the percent of Americans that smoked in the 1960s was over 40 percent. Gallup reports that 12 percent of Americans smoke in 2023. 
   
• Cancer deaths peaked in 1991, when 215 out of every 100,000 deaths were caused by cancer and then began to fall each year. 
   
• The overall cancer death rate in the U.S. fell 32 percent between 1991 and 2019 resulting in almost 3.5 million fewer cancer deaths. The steepest annual declines occurred in the immediate pre-pandemic years, dropping about 2% a year from 2015 through 2019 compared to 1% a year during the 1990s.
   
• To put today’s incidence and mortality in perspective, 2020 statistics show that one in every five deaths in the U.S. is due to cancer and one in every three people are expected to have cancer in their lifetime.
  
  

The drop in tobacco use is credited with the large reductions in cancer deaths at the end of the last century and demonstrates the power of prevention. The more we learn about cancer the more we understand the potential to further reduce cancer deaths by focusing on lifestyle choices. Community Form speaker, Dr. Dawn Mussallen, Integrative Oncologist and Cancer Survivor, Mayo Clinic, will share research findings that link lifestyle choices to reduced cancer incidence and sustain cancer survivorship today. 

Increased attention to screening and earlier detection, as well as a better understanding of how cancers grow and spread, have also contributed to a reduce rate of cancer deaths. The latter has led to more precise treatments that can control and even cure some cancers. Targeted chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and powerful combination treatments can give patients greater quality of life and longer lives. Director, Center for Gene and Cellular Immunotherapy at Washington University School of Medicine, Dr. John DiPersio, will simplify and share the promise of immunotherapy and precision medicine. 

Accelerating declines in the cancer death rate show the power of knowledge and actions to move closer to a world without cancer. Please join with other BHC and community members for this important conversation.
 
Warm regards,

Louise Y. Probst
BHC Executive Director