Racial-Sex Disparities--A Challenging Battle Against Cancer Mortality in the USA

Abstract

Decline in US cancer mortality has recently been reported, based on either pooled mortality of all cancer sites or age-adjusted mortality rates of specific sites. While the former could be dominated by a few cancer sites and would not reflect that of other sites, the latter used the US 2000 Population as reference for age-standardization, which was lack of justification. This study aimed to examine US cancer mortality trend and disparities in sites, races, and sex. We studied cancer incidence-based mortality by race and sex from 1974 to 2008 of cervix, prostate, colon and rectum, lung, leukemia, liver, pancreas, and stomach in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. We developed a model-based mortality rate and examined rate ratio of each calendar period to the first period within each race-sex group. Cancer mortality of cervix, colon and rectum, leukemia, and stomach declined in all groups. Prostate cancer increased first in all racial groups and decreased thereafter at different pace. Lung cancer declined among males of all races but increased among females. Liver cancer increased steadily fast among white and black females, doubled in whites and black males, and climbed slowly in other races. Pancreas cancer declined among black males and females, and changed little among others. Cancer mortality trend presents heterogeneity across sites, races, and sex. Recently observed mortality decline may not reflect every cancer site or group. More effort needs to focus on specific race-sex groups that had increasing lung and liver cancer mortality.