Breast and prostate cancer incidence is rising among people of every race and ethnicity in the U.S., while lung cancer incidence and death rates are dropping sharply, according to the CDC’s “Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer,” published Sept. 22 in Cancer.
Researchers analyzed data from population-based cancer registries and the National Center for Health Statistics’ National Vital Statistics System to track cancer incidence through 2022 and death rates through 2023 by cancer type, sex, race and ethnicity and age.
The CDC report follows the American Association for Cancer Research’s 16th annual “Cancer Progress Report,” which found the U.S. cancer death rate declined 35% between 2015 and 2024.
The decline in cancer deaths was driven largely by “accelerated progress against lung cancer,” the CDC said in a Sept. 22 news release.
Here are 10 notes on the CDC’s 2026 report:
Overall trends
- Between 2018 and 2022, overall cancer incidence was 467.5 per 100,000 and rose an average of 0.2% per year, continuing an upward trend since 2012.
The overall increase in cancer incidence was driven by women, whose rates climbed 0.4% per year from 2011 to 2022, excluding 2020. Incidence among men remained stable from 2013 to 2022.
Black men had the highest incidence among men at 550.6 per 100,000, and American Indian and Alaska Native women had the highest incidence at 497.7 per 100,000. - The overall cancer death rate was 145.4 per 100,000 from 2019 to 2023. Death rates fell 1.6% per year among men and 1.1% per year among women and declined among men and women of every race and ethnicity.
- Among children ages 14 and younger, the cancer death rate fell 1.3% per year from 2004 to 2023.
American Indian and Alaska Native children had the highest incidence and death rates, though sparse data prevented researchers from analyzing death rate trends in that group.
Lung cancer
- Between 2004 and 2023, lung cancer death rates fell 52% among men and 37% among women.
Lung cancer accounted for 21% of all cancer deaths in 2023, down from 29% in 2004.
Between 2018 and 2022, lung cancer incidence dropped 3.5% per year among men and 1.9% per year among women, though it remained relatively unchanged among American Indian and Alaska Native women and Hispanic women. - Between 2001 and 2024, adult cigarette smoking prevalence fell from 22.6% to 9.9%.
The share of lung cancer cases diagnosed at an early, localized stage rose from 16% to 27% among men and from 19% to 33% among women between 2003 and 2022.
Between 2000 and 2018, the five-year relative survival rate for lung cancer doubled from 15.1% to 30.1%.
Breast cancer
- Between 2018 and 2022, breast cancer incidence rose 1.1% per year and increased among women of every race and ethnicity.
Breast cancer death rates fell 1.5% per year between 2019 and 2023 among women overall and among Black, Hispanic and white women, but were stable among American Indian and Alaska Native women and Asian and Pacific Islander women.
Between 2018 and 2022, breast cancer was the most common cancer among adolescents and young adults ages 15 to 39. It was also the leading cause of cancer death in that group from 2019 to 2023, though death rates fell 3% per year over the same period.
Prostate cancer
- Between 2018 and 2022, prostate cancer incidence rose 2.9% per year and increased among men of every race and ethnicity.
Death rates declined 0.4% per year overall but stopped declining among Asian and Pacific Islander, Black and white men.
Colorectal cancer
- Colorectal cancer incidence fell only among white men and women and was stable among all other groups. Previously declining incidence rates among women leveled off.
Among adolescents and young adults ages 15 to 39, colorectal cancer death rates rose 0.9% per year from 2019 to 2023.
Pancreatic cancer
- Pancreatic cancer incidence rose among both men and women. Death rates increased 0.4% per year among white men, white women and Hispanic women, while they were stable among most other groups and declined slightly among Black men.
Other cancers
- Uterine cancer incidence rose among American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian and Pacific Islander, Black and Hispanic women and was stable among white women, while death rates increased among women overall.
Oral cavity and pharynx cancer incidence and death rates rose among men and women.
Liver cancer incidence fell among men and rose among women. Death rates among men declined 1% per year, driven by annual drops of 2.4% to 8.8% among American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian and Pacific Islander, Black and Hispanic men. Among women, rising death rates were confined to white women, at 1.4% per year.
The myeloma death rate fell 4.3% per year among men and 3.2% per year among women between 2019 and 2023. Along with lung cancer, these were the largest death rate declines.
Read the full report here.
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