Princess Kate's cancer story highlights a growing issue for US women
Nearly 1 million American women will be diagnosed with cancer in 2025, according to a report published Thursday by the American Cancer Society.
Cancer is no longer the death sentence it was a generation or two ago. Many, like Princess Kate, who announced this week that her cancer is in remisison and she adjusting to "new normal," will live with the disease for years.
While deaths from cancer have decreased overall, the study shows cancer rates keep going up − especially among women. Researchers also found middle-aged women, like the Princess of Wales, age 43, now have a slightly higher cancer risk than their male counterparts and young women are almost twice as likely to be diagnosed as young men.
"This progress (in cancer deaths) is tempered by the rising incidence in young and middle-aged women, who are often the family caregivers, and a shifting cancer burden from men to women, harkening back to the early 1900s when cancer was more common in women," said lead author Rebecca Siegal, senior scientific director of surveillance research at the American Cancer Society.
Cancer rates in women are likely driven by certain cancer types that are more common or specific to women, said senior author Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, senior vice president of surveillance and health equity science at the American Cancer Society.
The report shows the rate of breast cancer has been climbing since the mid-2000s by about 1% each year. This could be partly due to increasing rates of obesity and heavy alcohol consumption, Jemal said. Physical activity and alcohol consumption account for 7% and 16% of breast cancers, respectively.
Cervical cancer also saw an increase among women between 30 and 44, the ACS report showed. Jemal said this is likely due to a lack of screening and vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV), the primary cause of cervical cancer.
The new study also showed rates of uterine corpus cancer, which affects the uterus's lining, have been rising at the same pace as breast cancer. Melanoma and liver cancers also increased in women while they decreased in men. The decline in smoking, which was always more common in men, could explain some of the cancer dropoff among men, but doesn't explain the increase in women.
"What we can do is really educate the public about the importance of prevention," Jemal said. "Over 40% of cancer cases in the U.S. are potentially preventable through modifiable risk factors, like maintaining a healthy body weight, and also staying current with recommended screening or vaccinations."
There may also be unknown factors that could be leading to higher cancer rates in women that would require more research, said Dr. Larry Norton, senior vice president and medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
"It may be something that we haven't thought of that relates to hormones and the female biology," he said. "Uncovering those hidden factors is also very, very important," he said.
Overall, the cancer society's report estimated that this year, more than two million people ‒ or about 5,600 per day ‒ will be diagnosed with cancer, and about 618,00 people will die.
Adrianna Rodriguez can be reached at adrodriguez@usatoday.com.