Can you get down low?

Rates of cancer death can. Per capita cancer deaths peaked in the US in 1991, largely due to smoking, and have been decreasing ever since with each of the last two years analyzed bringing record-breaking decreases (2.2% decrease from 2016 → 2017 and 2.4% decrease from 2017 → 2018). Back to smoking, the largest decline in deaths was seen for lung cancer, which can explain nearly half the total decrease from 2014 → 2018. That victory comes both from a steady decrease in incidence (yippee-ki-yo) as well as impressive survival gains for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). To the latter point, there were absolute increases of 5-6% in overall survival for every stage of NSCLC from 2010 → 2016. For now we will refrain from postulating the numbers that will play out for 2020. TBL: Take the win because we all deserve some good news in 2021. | Siegel, ACS 2021