Cancer screening and smoking cessation have saved nearly 6 million lives

Nearly 6 million deaths from five common cancers could be avoided through prevention, early detection and better treatments, a new study finds.

Biostatistician Katrina Goddard of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues used statistical modeling to estimate how many lives would have been lost in the United States for each of the five cancers if survival rates had remained at year-on-year levels. 1975, before major advances. strategies were implemented in cancer control. The team also calculated how many deaths were averted by improvements in prevention, screening and treatments.

Of the 5.9 million cancer deaths averted from 1975 to 2020, 80 percent were averted thanks to screening and prevention, researchers report Dec. 5 in JAMA Oncology.

Some special points:

• An estimated 3.45 million lung cancer deaths were averted, almost entirely due to smoking cessation.
• All 160,000 cervical cancer deaths averted were due to the Pap test and human papillomavirus screening. (The model does not include cervical cancers prevented by the HPV vaccine, which is reducing deaths among young women (SN: 27.11.24))
• The best treatments accounted for 75 percent of the more than 1 million breast cancer deaths averted. The rest were from mammography control.
• Of the 940,000 deaths averted from colorectal cancer, most (79 percent) were caught early or prevented by removing polyps during colonoscopy screening. The best treatments were responsible for avoiding 21 percent of colorectal cancer deaths.
• Screening prevented 56 percent of prostate cancer deaths, while new treatments averted another 44 percent.

However, not enough people are getting screened or adopting cancer prevention measures, such as quitting smoking. “There are opportunities to improve uptake of these strategies” and develop new treatments, early detection methods and ways to avoid getting cancer in the first place, says Goddard, who heads the Division of Cancer Control and Sciences. of Population at NCI. “We definitely need to consider the entire cancer control continuum when we’re thinking about how to reduce the burden of cancer.”