Healthcare Quality News

Fewer people are getting cancer and death rates continue to fall.

According to the the National Cancer Institute report published Dec. 7 in the journal Cancer in the Unites States, new diagnoses for all types of cancer fell by nearly 1% per year on average from 1999 and deaths fell 1.6% per year from 2001 to 2006. The decline in mortality rates was greater among men, at 2% per year during that five-year period, than for women, at 1.5% per year.

(SOURCES: AHA News Now, http://ahanews.com, December 9, 2009; National Cancer Institute, http://www.seer.cancer.gov, accessed December 22, 2009)