The American Cancer Society has released its annual report on the incidence and mortality of cancer in the USA. The full report can be downloaded below. I’ll summarize the salient features of the ACS’s data. They come from registries that assembled the information (occurrence, outcomes, and incidence data) through the end of 2021 and mortality data collected through 2022.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the US. The top 10 are shown in the chart below. All the graphic data in this article can be viewed in a larger size by clicking on them. Cancer is the leading cause of death in men aged 60-79 and for women 40-79. All incidence and death rates were age standardized to the 2000 US standard population (19 age groups) and expressed per 100,000 persons (or per million for childhood and adolescent cancer incidence).

Figure 1 depicts the most common cancers diagnosed in men and women in 2025. Prostate cancer, lung and bronchus (hereinafter lung) cancer, and CRC (colo-rectal cancer) account for almost one half (48%) of all incident cases in men, with prostate cancer alone accounting for 30% of diagnoses. For women, breast cancer, lung cancer, and CRC account for 51% of all new diagnoses, with breast cancer alone accounting for 32% of cases.

The next figure shows incidence and mortality data for men and women. Overall cancer incidence in men spiked during the early 1990s because of a surge in the detection of asymptomatic prostate cancer as a result of rapid, widespread uptake of prostate‐specific antigen (PSA) testing. The ACS has finally conceded that routine PSA screening led to overdiagnosis of prostate cancer. “Overall cancer incidence in men spiked during the early 1990s because of a surge in the detection of asymptomatic prostate cancer as a result of rapid, widespread uptake of prostate‐specific antigen (PSA) testing. A Swedish population‐based trial reported that the diagnosis of clinically insignificant tumors was
reduced by more than one half when biopsy was limited to men with positive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) results.47 Similarly, a recent meta‐analysis found that MRI‐integrated screening reduced the odds of biopsy by 72% and the diagnosis of clinically insignificant cancers by 66%.”

The incidence rates for common cancers are depicted in the figure below.

The next figure shows cancer deaths by site in males. The same data for females is in the subsequent figure. Notice that stomach cancer once the leading cause of cancer deaths has almost disappeared.


The ACS has also confronted the issue of survival bias. “The 5‐year relative survival rate for all cancers combined has increased from 49% for diagnoses during the mid‐1970s to 69% during 2014–2020 with the highest contemporary survival for cancers of the thyroid (98%), prostate (97%), testis (95%), and melanoma (94%). Earlier diagnosis through screening and incidental detection through imaging has contributed to gains in survival for some cancers (e.g., breast, prostate, thyroid, and kidney) both by increasing the likelihood of successful treatment and through lead‐time bias and the detection of indolent cancers (e.g., overdiagnosis)…Mortality rates are a better indicator of progress against cancer than incidence or survival because they are less affected by detection biases, such as those that can occur for screen‐detected cancers.”
The final figure shows the number of averted deaths over time for both men and women. The number of deaths prevented requires that the number of expected deaths be calculated correctly. It’s a figure that has a lot of guess to it.

The ACS report should be read by all physicians. It is clear enough for any interested layman to digest.