The best news you'll read all week about cancer

This week the British cancer research institution Cancer Research UK published new data on projected cancer rates, reports BBC News. Their numbers forecast a 17 percent fall in cancer rates by 2030. The BBC's James Gallagher explains:

About 170 UK deaths per 100,000 of population were from cancer in 2010, and this figure is predicted to fall to 142 out of every 100,000. Some of the biggest killers - lung, breast, bowel, and prostate cancer - are part of the trend. The biggest fall is projected to be in ovarian cancer, with death rates dropping by 43%.

Here's those numbers in graph form:

The research group credits the predicted drop in cancer rates (in the UK) to:

• Improvements in cancer diagnosis and care, as the fruits of decades of research continue to be taken up by the NHS.
• The introduction of the bowel screening programme [improved screening for bowel cancer].
• Recent changes in smoking habits.

The United States currently spends around $70,000 per cancer patient (pdf), or $90 billion per year in 2008. If cancers in the U.S. fell at a similar rate to what's projected in the UK, that would save the U.S. healthcare system (and patients) over $15 billion, which could help counteract the $750 billion the industry reportedly wastes annually.

[via BBC News]

Graph: Research UK

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com