U.S. Cancer Death Rate Fell 35% Since 1991, AACR Report Finds

Cancer killed Americans at a rate 35% lower in 2024 than it did in 1991, according to the American Association for Cancer Research's 2026 Cancer Progress Report, released September 16. That translates to roughly 4.8 million fewer cancer deaths over three decades, per the report cited by the University of Florida Health Cancer Institute.

The five-year relative survival rate for all cancers combined now sits at 71%, AACR president Keith Flaherty, MD, of the Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute, said during a congressional briefing tied to the report's release. The number of Americans living as cancer survivors has grown from about 3 million in the 1970s to 18.6 million as of early 2025.

Declining smoking rates get the credit for most of the drop, according to the report, which drove down lung cancer deaths as detection and treatment also improved. Falling death rates from colorectal and breast cancer added to the decline, AACR said.

The gains aren't evenly spread. For distant-stage disease across all cancer types, the five-year relative survival rate more than doubled, climbing from 17% in the mid-1990s to 36% between 2016 and 2022, according to the University of Florida summary of the report.

Pediatric cancer survival tells a similarly split story. About 80% of children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer now survive at least five years, a jump largely credited to progress against childhood leukemia. Survival for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia now tops 90%.

But Joanne Lagmay, MD, chief of the University of Florida's Division of Pediatric Hematology Oncology, said the topline number hides real gaps. "Outcomes for certain aggressive brain tumors, high-risk or metastatic sarcomas, and relapsed cancers remain unacceptably poor," Lagmay said. "These are the children our current therapies are still leaving behind."

Cancer among people ages 15 to 39 has risen roughly a third since the 1970s, Lagmay noted, with young people increasingly diagnosed with breast and colorectal cancers historically seen in older adults.

Between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026, the FDA approved 11 new anticancer therapies and five new indications for existing drugs, AACR said. Flaherty also flagged a drug approved after that window closed: daraxonrasib (brand name Rasonque), a RAS inhibitor for metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma that AACR says doubled median overall survival compared to standard chemotherapy in a Phase III trial involving patients with RAS G12 mutations.

Former Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), diagnosed in December 2025 with metastatic stage IV pancreatic cancer and given a three-month prognosis, said in a recorded message played at the briefing that he was "blessed to be one of the guinea pigs" in the clinical trial that led to that FDA approval.

The report also pointed to early results on cancer vaccines: a peptide vaccine targeting KRAS mutations produced durable T-cell responses in people at high risk for pancreatic cancer, and an investigational individualized vaccine for surgically resected melanoma showed durable benefit against recurrence five years out, according to AACR.

AACR used the report to warn that unspecified proposed federal rules "would inject political considerations into funding decisions and give federal agencies broader authority to terminate grants, including awards supporting ongoing clinical trials, for reasons unrelated to scientific merit or recipient performance."

Flaherty went further in his own remarks, saying "the current turmoil at NIH and other federal health agencies threatens continued progress for patients," and calling on Congress to "maintain strong bipartisan support for sustained federal investment."

That's AACR's characterization, made by an organization whose members rely heavily on NIH and NCI grants, and it's fair to note the group has a direct financial stake in that funding continuing uninterrupted. No specific rule, agency memo, or legislative text was cited in the materials AACR released alongside the report, and no vote or final rule has been confirmed. Taxpayers footing the bill for federal research are entitled to ask whether grant terminations tied to performance or compliance are unreasonable interference or basic oversight.

What is measurable: the FDA approval pipeline for cancer drugs kept moving through mid-2026, and the mortality decline AACR cites long predates any funding dispute now playing out in Washington. Whether Congress acts on Flaherty's appeal for "strong bipartisan support" remains an open question, with no scheduled vote identified in the report or AACR's public statements.