Anti-tumor drug ecteinascidin 743 ( Yondelis ).
Image Credit: Timothy Jamison, Massachusetts Institute of Technology .
The American Cancer Society's annual report tells that cancer deaths in the U.S. continue to decrease. Their press release notes that traditional cancers such as lung, colon, breast, etc, have declined, but rarer cancers such as pancreas, liver, thyroid, have increased.
This year, there are 1,638,910 projected new cancer cases. Deaths attributed to cancer will be about 1/3 of that number. Over the past two decades death rates
from cancer have decreased by 23 percent for men and 15 percent for women.
Cancer Facts and Figures 2012 has some additional information. Recall the 577,000 projected cancer deaths - about 173,000 of them are due to tobacco use. About one-third of the deaths will be related to obesity or other related behavior. A very large percentage of skin cancers could be avoided by protecting the skin from over exposure. So a very large number of cancers could be prevented.
About 12 million Americans are survivors of cancer. The five year survival rate for cancers diagnosed between 2001 and 2007 is 67 percent, up from 49 percent for the 1975-1977 period. About 77 percent of all cancers are diagnosed in individuals over 55 years of age.
Cancer-related deaths continue to decline in US tells that cancer rates are roughly dropping by 1.7 percent a year. The decline is due to both screening and improved treatment. The human papillomavirus or HPV infection cancers have been increasing in the past ten years.
(If you are curious, ecteinascidin 743, brand name Yondelis, was first discovered and isolated from a sea squirt. It is sold by Zeltia and Johnson and Johnson and appears effective against soft tissue sarcoma. The drug is now synthesized as it would take 5 tons of sea squirt for a clinical trial.)