Better ways to detect and treat cancers are affecting survival rates. Photo / Kevin Mohatt, for The Washington Post
More Americans diagnosed with cancer are now surviving the disease - marking a positive trend that experts say reflects the effectiveness of early prevention and detection strategies, and advancements in treatment and care.
New findings from the American Cancer Society’s annual report released today show for the first time that the five-year survival rate for all cancers has reached 70%, with the most notable survival gains occurring among people diagnosed with more fatal cancers such as myeloma (a blood cancer), liver cancer and lung cancer.
“Seven in 10 people now survive their cancer five years or more, up from only half in the mid-70s,” Rebecca Siegel, senior scientific director of surveillance research at ACS and lead author of the report, said in a statement.
“This stunning victory is largely the result of decades of cancer research that provided clinicians with the tools to treat the disease more effectively, turning many cancers from a death sentence into a chronic disease.”
The cancer mortality rate has continued to decline through 2023, averting 4.8 million deaths since 1991, according to the report.
In 2026, the US is expected to see upward of two million new cancer cases and more than 626,000 deaths related to the disease.
Cancer incidence and mortality generally appears to be higher among men than women, the report found.
Improvements in survival rates can largely be attributed to less tobacco use, better ways to detect cancers early and the development of more effective treatments, said William Dahut, chief scientific officer for ACS.
Importantly, he noted, advancements in cancer care, such as novel therapies, that have led to people living longer would not have been possible without funding research.
In early 2025, the Trump Administration slashed millions in health research grants, including money that had been earmarked for cancer studies.
“The thing to focus on is really the importance of scientific funding and scientific discovery to really drive improvements in five-year survival,” said Dahut, who added that the trends being observed in patients with metastatic cancer, in which the disease has spread to other parts of the body, are “particularly striking”.
The survival rate for people with metastatic rectal cancer, for instance, increased from 8% in the mid-1990s to 18%. And the percentage of patients who survive a diagnosis of metastatic lung cancer is up to 10% from 2%.
“Overall, the findings in this report are highly encouraging and demonstrate that meaningful progress has been made in the fight against cancer,” said Sharon Giordano, chair of breast medical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre, who was not involved in the research.
Experts emphasised that there is still work to be done to better understand different types of cancers and how to treat them.
“Decades of research and work in this area have led to longer, better lives for millions of Americans with cancer,” said Cardinale Smith, chief medical officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre, who was not involved in the report. “This continued progress also depends on the sustained investment that we’ve had in the research that has [got] us here.”
Despite reductions in smoking, the report found that lung cancer is expected to cause the most cancer deaths in 2026.
While smoking continues to be the main driver of lung cancer cases, more people who have never smoked are also being diagnosed, and scientists are working to understand why.
Some experts have called for changes to lung cancer screening guidelines that would increase the number of people who can be screened.
The report also highlighted that racial disparities continue to exist.
Native American people have the highest cancer mortality and are two times more likely than white people to die of kidney, liver, stomach and uterine cervix cancers.
Young people who are Alaskan Natives are most likely to be diagnosed with colorectal cancer, Dahut said, adding that rates of the disease in this population are “the highest in the world”.
Cancer survival is lower among black people than white people for nearly every cancer type, the report notes. Researchers largely attributed the gap to less access to high-quality care from prevention to diagnosis and treatment.
While better survival rates should inspire hope in people, Dahut said there is a critical need to improve care for the growing number of survivors.
As of January last year, there were more than 18.6 million cancer survivors in the US - a figure that is projected to exceed 22 million by 2035, according to ACS.
“In our current medical system, we don’t really have a great model for who’s best to follow cancer survivors,” Dahut said.
Many primary care providers don’t have expertise in survivorship and cancer recurrence, he added.
“Having more and more survivors is great,” he said.
“But I think we’re going to have to come up with strategies in order to ensure that they’re cared for in a way that’s consistent across the country.”
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