WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The risk of getting cancer has decreased in the United States over the past decades, but greater number of people die from the disease because the country’s population is growing, US federal agency the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a study released on Thursday.
“From 1975 to 2009, the number of cancer deaths increased among white and black Americans primarily because of an aging white population and a growing black population,” the study said. “Overall, age-standardized cancer death rates (risk) declined in all groups.”
“Increased efforts to promote cancer prevention and improve survival are needed to counter the impact of a growing and aging population on the cancer burden,” the study said.
The relative survival rate for all types of cancer has improved from 49 percent in 1970s to 68 percent in 2000s, according to the US voluntary health organization the American Cancer Society
However, the society expects about 1.7 million new cancer cases to be diagnosed in the United States in 2015, with more than 580,000 fatal cases in the result of the disease.
