Cancer deaths lower

A new report from the American Cancer Society shows that death rates from cancer have been going down since 1999, with the risk of death from cancer declining by more than 1% in both men and women. About 1 million deaths from cancer have been avoided since around 1991.

That sounds promising, but it's not as good as it could be, says Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society and CNNHealth.com conditions expert.

"Our data on cancer causation and cancer prevention tells us that we could have done a lot better," Brawley said.

Given all of the available information about how to prevent, screen for and treat cancer effectively, it appears that up to 200,000 lives could have been saved in 2008 if all of those known measures had been taken, Brawley said. More specifically, many of those deaths would not have occurred if more people hadn't been smoking over the past 20 years. That's because it takes about 20 to 30 years of smoking to develop lung cancer.

"It's not truly a war if we have 200,000 avoidable casualties in one year and everybody yawns," Brawley said.

The American Cancer Society report, called Cancer Statistics, 2012 , estimated that more than 1.6 million new cancer cases and about 580,000 deaths from cancer will occur in the United States in 2012.

Besides tobacco, the combination of obesity, high caloric intake and lack of physical activity is causing cancer among many Americans, Brawley said. This will one day surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, he said.

Cancers of the pancreas, liver and esophagus were found to be on the rise and can all be tied to obesity, Brawley said. Hepatitis B and C, transmitted sexually and through intravenous drug use, may also lead to liver cancer.

The report also showed a rise in the incidence of thyroid cancer, which could be because of improved diagnostic methods, as well as increasing rates of throat cancer, which could be tied to the spread of human papillomavirus during the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s. The HPV vaccine, available for young men and women aged 11 to 26, may help prevent cases of cancers of the head and neck, Brawley said, in addition to its role fighting cervical cancer in women and genital warts in men.

Access to treatment is another major issue in avoiding cancer deaths, Brawley said. A substantial minority of cancer patients do not get the treatment they need, many times because of lack of insurance coverage.

More science needs to be done on other possible causes of cancer from environmental causes, such as air pollutants and chemicals in plastics, Brawley said.