Credit: Rhoda Baer
A new report shows the rate of invasive cancer among US men and women dropped slightly from 2009 to 2010, and the most common cancers were solid tumor malignancies.
However, non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) consistently rated among the top 10 most common cancers, regardless of patient gender or race.
The report was prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and appears in the current Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Researchers analyzed new cases of invasive cancers diagnosed in 2010 and reported to the CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries and the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and Results Program.
Data from all states (except Arkansas and Minnesota) and the District of Columbia were included in the analysis, which covered 97% of the US population.
The researchers found the rates of invasive cancer cases dropped from 459 per 100,000 people in 2009 to 446 per 100,000 in 2010.
Cancer rates were higher among men (503 per 100,000) than women (405 per 100,000). In all, there were 745,383 cases reported among men and 711,113 among women in 2010.
The highest rates were for cancers of the prostate (126 per 100,000), female breast (119 per 100,000), lung and bronchus (62 per 100,000), and colon and rectum (40 per 100,000). Together, these accounted for half of all cancer cases in the US.
However, hematologic malignancies were fairly common as well. NHL was the 6th most common cancer for men of all races/ethnicities except Hispanic. For this group, NHL was the 4th most common cancer.
NHL was the 7th most common cancer for black and white women and 6th for the remaining groups, which included American Indian/Alaskan native, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Hispanic women.
Leukemia and myeloma were also among the top 10 most common invasive cancers for certain patients.
Leukemia was the 9th most common cancer for Hispanic and white men and the 10th for American Indian/Alaskan Native women. Myeloma was the 8th most common cancer for black women.
Overall, cancer rates were highest among black patients (455 per 100,000), followed by whites (445 per 100,000), Hispanics (344 per 100,000), Asian/Pacific Islanders (289 per 100,000), and American Indians/Alaskan Natives (270 per 100,000).
