Quick Facts About Cancer

• In 2005, about 1.4 million new cases of cancer were diagnosed.
• In 2005, more than 570,000 Americans died of cancer – more than 1,500 people a day.
• Cancer is the second leading cause of death among all Americans.
• Cancer is the leading cause of death among Americans under the age of 85.
• In the U.S., one out of every four deaths is attributed to cancer.
• Over the course of a lifetime, one in three women and one in two men will develop cancer.
• More than 75 percent of all cancers are diagnosed in patients aged 55 or older.
• The leading cancer for men of all races is prostate cancer, following by lung cancer and colorectal cancer.
• Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer among women, regardless of race.
• Among white women, lung cancer is the second most common cancer followed by colorectal cancer.
• Lung cancer accounts for more deaths than prostate, breast, and colorectal cancers combined.
• For black and Asian/Pacific Islander women, colorectal cancer is the second most common cancer and lung cancer is third.
• More than one million cases of nonmelanoma skin cancer will be diagnosed this year.
• Among children aged 14 and younger, the most common cancers are leukemias.
• Overall, cancer rates are higher for whites and blacks than for Asians/Pacific Islanders.
• Approximately 5 to 10 percent of cancers are hereditary.
• Since 1990, more than 17 million new cases of cancer have been diagnosed.
• About 76 percent of all cancers are diagnosed in people aged 55 or older.
• The five-year relative survival rate for all cancers is 63 percent. That means that 37 percent of all patients diagnosed with cancer survive less than five years.
• Relative survival rates have risen to 64 percent in 2005, up from 53 percent in 1985.
• In 2003, the overall cost of cancer was an estimated $189.5 billion, including $64.2 billion in direct medical costs.
• Of the 1.4 million patients diagnosed with cancer in 2005, only about 25,000 will enroll in a clinical trial.
• Lung, breast, prostate and colon cancers have the highest number of clinical trials devoted to them – more than 40 percent of all clinical trials.

Sources: American Cancer Society
Centers for Disease Control
National Institutes of Health