A new report on cancer, An Update on Cancer Deaths in the United States, uses the latest cancer death data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s National Center for Health Statistics. In 2020, almost 603,000 people died of cancer in the United States, but cancer death rates have continued to drop. Cancer deaths have dropped 27% over 20 years from 2001 to 2020. In other findings:
- Cancer remained the second leading cause of death, after heart disease in 2020. COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death.
- Lung cancer was the leading cause of cancer death, attributing to 23% of all cancer deaths.
- Cancer death rates differed by cancer type, sex, racial and ethnic group, and residence in an urban or rural county.