Advancements in treatments, screening and prevention have saved millions of lives, according to the 2025 American Cancer Society (ACS) annual report. The cancer mortality rate dropped 34% between 1991 and 2022, which had the effect of averting 4.5 million cancer-related deaths.
The report — Cancer Statistics, 2025 — also offers sobering news about rising mortality rates in four cancers, including
- Oral cancer
- Pancreatic cancer
- Endometrial cancer
- Liver cancer in women
The last two listed are contributing factors in the alarming increase in cancer among women, especially younger women, the report says.
“While these cancers have multiple and differing risk factors, of concern are the varying influences of tobacco and alcohol consumption — as well as the impact of the epidemic of obesity — on their development,” says Maurie Markman, M.D., president of medicine and science at City of Hope® Cancer Centers in Atlanta, Chicago and Phoenix.
The study also estimated more than two million new cancer cases will be diagnosed in the United States in 2025 and 618,120 cancer deaths. Those deaths are roughly equal to the populations of the state of Vermont or the city of Memphis, Tenn., showing that much work remains to be done.
"It will require partnerships between the community, the health care system, cancer researchers, government, industry — we all have to work together if we want to continue to see a decrease [in cancer] and an ultimate increase in cures," John D. Carpten, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for City of Hope tells Fox News.
This article examines the following subjects brought up in the ACS report:
- Oral Cancer Survival Rates
- Pancreatic Cancer Survival Rates
- Endometrial Cancer Survival Rates
- Survival Rates of Liver Cancer in Women
- Other Cancer Concerns
If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with lung cancer and are looking for a second opinion, call us 24/7 at 877-524-4673.
Oral Cancer Survival Rates
Oral cavity cancer rates are rising in the country, the report says, mostly involving cancers of the tongue, tonsils and oropharynx (the throat’s middle section). These cancers typically are associated with human papillomavirus (HPV) that may be spread through oral sex.
The mortality rate for oral cavity cancers has also been increasing by 2% per year, the report says. HPV is preventable, thanks to a vaccine approved for use in 2006. Parents are encouraged to have their children vaccinated at the age of 11 or 12, before they become sexually active, because the vaccine has no impact on a virus that is already present in the body.
The children who received the first vaccines are just now turning 30, meaning there’s a huge swath of the adult population that currently is not able to benefit from the vaccine.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend HPV vaccinations for individuals up to age 26, and for others age 27 through 45 “based on discussion with their clinician.” CDC officials say there is less benefit in the latter age range because many more in that range may have already been exposed to the virus.
The HPV vaccine prevents new infections, but it is not treatment for existing infections or disease. Cancers caused by HPV may not show up until decades after the original infection.
Pancreatic Cancer Survival Rates
The death rate from pancreatic cancer went from about five per 100,000 for both men and women in the 1930s, to 13 per 100,000 for men and 10 per 100,000 for women in recent years, the ACS report says.
"Pancreatic is an incredibly deadly form of cancer," Carpten says, in part because it may grow undetected for as much as 10 years. It is the third leading cause of cancer death in the United States.
Lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer deaths, is 2.5 times more deadly than pancreatic cancer. However, unlike lung cancer, the mortality numbers for cancer of the pancreas are on the rise. The increase is due in part to improved classification of the disease and from the obesity epidemic, which is a risk factor for pancreatic cancer, the report says.
Research into pancreatic cancer hasn’t been as fruitful as for other cancers.
“In contrast to most cancers, however, therapeutic advances are also lacking despite substantial effort that includes national legislation to focus attention on pancreatic cancer,” the ACS report says.
Since 2000, there have been hundreds of clinical trials and five new drugs approved to treat the cancer, but the median survival for the disease remains less than a year. “For the nine in 10 patients diagnosed with pancreatic adenocarcinoma, 5-year survival remains just 8%,” the report says.
That’s why it’s critical to come up with a way to detect pancreatic cancer earlier, Carpten says.
“By the time those cancers have advanced, they've spread to the liver or other organs, and they’re almost impossible to cure at that stage," he says. "If we can identify those cancers when they're at a curable stage, we can improve outcomes."
Endometrial Cancer Survival Rates
The ACS report is bleak as well when it comes endometrial cancer, also called uterine corpus cancer.
“The only cancer for which survival has decreased over the past four decades is uterine corpus cancer, which is the fourth most common cancer in women and the fifth most common cause of cancer death,” it says.
“Uterine corpus cancer is one of only a handful of cancers with increasing mortality,” rising 1.5% per year since 2013, it says. The report also notes that the cancer has the largest survival disparity between Black people and whites, “with a 5-year relative survival rate of just 63% among Black women versus 84% among White women.”
The report says Black women are half as likely as white women to receive the diagnostic procedures outlined in guidelines for uterine corpus cancer. That inequality leads to later stage diagnosis of the cancer in Black women, as can also be seen in colon cancer and rectal cancer.
“A recent study estimated that CRC [colorectal cancer] mortality rates in Black people would be reduced by 19%, eliminating two thirds of the Black-White disparity, merely by ensuring the same quality screening as White people,” the report says.
The ACS report also points out the underfunding of research into uterine corpus cancer. In 2019, for instance, it says the National Cancer Institute spent six times more on research into cervical cancer than for uterine corpus cancer, while the latter killed three times more women in 2022 (13,860 versus 4,320).
Survival Rates of Liver Cancer in Women
Incidence of liver cancer has stabilized among men. But that’s not true for women.
“The decades-long increase in liver cancer mortality has finally reversed in men, as rates decreased by 1.2% per year from 2018–2022, but continued in women with an increase of 0.7% per year during this time period,” the ACS report says.
And even though five-year survival rates for liver cancer have had the largest increase in relative terms in recent decades, going from 3% in 1975 to 22% in the most recent data, it is still one of the deadliest cancers along with lung, esophageal and pancreatic cancers.
People of American Indian and Alaskan Native descent have the highest mortality rate from liver cancer. Hispanics and Asian American and Pacific Islanders are also at greater risk, with liver cancer mortality for them between 40% and 50% higher than for white people, the report says.
Other Cancer Concerns
The American Cancer Society report says, “progress is lagging in cancer prevention,” with incidence rates on the rise for six of the top 10 cancers: breast cancer, prostate cancer, melanoma, endometrial cancer, pancreatic cancer and, in individuals under 65 years of age, colorectal cancer.
The ACS report pointed out other areas of concern, including:
- More colorectal cancer is being diagnosed in people younger than 65 years of age than previously, and the same is true for cervical cancer in women between the ages of 30 and 44.
- Native Americans are more than twice as likely as white people to be diagnosed with kidney, liver, stomach and cervical cancers.
- Black people are twice as likely as whites to die of prostate, stomach, and uterine corpus cancers.
- The incidence of lung cancer in women under the age of 65 surpassed that in men in that age category for the first time in 2021.
“We continue to see disparities, particularly when we’re thinking about race and ethnicity, but we’re also starting to see some other interesting trends, such as a trend in an increase in early cancers, cancers occurring in individuals under the age of 50,” Carpten says.
In looking at the cancers affecting women, the report says the statistics are being impacted by an increase in binge and heavy drinking among women under the age of 50, among other factors.
“The increase in cancers observed in younger women is concerning,” Dr. Markman says. “Several hypotheses can be advanced to partially explain the data, including later childbearing, changes in tobacco and alcohol consumption among women, and the staggering increase in obesity within the population.”
Carpten called the increasing cancer incidences in women a “disconcerting trend” and said more research is needed, pointing to the continuing rise in the diagnosis of breast cancer.
"The decrease in fertility and increases in obesity that we’ve seen are risk factors for breast cancer, especially in postmenopausal middle-aged women," he says. "But there could be other modifiable risk factors at play, like alcohol and physical activity."
If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with lung cancer and are looking for a second opinion, call us 24/7 at 877-524-4673.