Two of the most critical findings are driven by substantial changes in cancer prevention and screening in the last decade. First, there was an astounding 65% reduction in cervical cancer rates in women ages 20-24 from 2012 through 2019, in the wake of the introduction of the human papillomavirus vaccine.
By contrast, prostate cancer, which is the second leading cause of cancer death for men in the U.S., increased by 3% per year from 2014 through 2019 after two decades of decline. Most concerning is that this increase was driven by the diagnosis of advanced disease. Since 2011, the diagnosis of advanced-stage prostate cancer has increased by 4% to 5% annually and the proportion of men diagnosed with distant-stage disease has doubled.
Added Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer at the American Cancer Society, “We must address these shifts in prostate cancer, especially in the Black community, since the incidence of prostate cancer in Black men is 70% higher than in White men and prostate cancer mortality rates in Black men are approximately two to four times higher than those in every other racial and ethnic group.