The Largest Single-Year Drop in U.S. Cancer Death Rate Ever Recorded

From 2016 to 2017—the most recent period for which we have complete statistics—America's death rate for cancer saw "the largest single-year drop ever recorded." So says the American Cancer Society's Cancer Facts & Figures 2020 report, which notes that the 2.2 percent drop that year was part of a larger 29 percent decline since 1991. Back then, there were 215 cancer deaths for every 100,000 people; by 2017, the figure had fallen to 152 per 100,000.

An accompanying article in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians notes that this translates...