Jan. 16, 2025 – Women under the age of 65 are more likely than men to be diagnosed with cancer, according to new data from the American Cancer Society.
The risk is particularly stark for women 49 and younger, of whom at least 1 in 17 are facing an invasive cancer diagnosis sometime between birth and their 50th birthday. The risk for men is 1 in 29.
The new data suggests that nearly 40% of people will be diagnosed with invasive cancer in their lifetime. The group of devastating diseases remains the second-leading cause of death in the U.S., behind heart disease.
Overall, though, cancer deaths continue to decline. The new report shows a drop of 34% between 1991 and 2022 for deaths linked to cancer. Things adding to the decline in deaths are fewer people smoking, better treatments, and earlier detection.
“However, this progress is tempered by rising incidence in young and middle-aged women, who are often the family caregivers, and a shifting cancer burden from men to women, harkening back to the early 1900s when cancer was more common in women,” the report’s lead author, Rebecca Siegel, MPH, a senior scientific director at the American Cancer Society, said in a news release.
Some new trends emerged when the researchers looked at data for specific types of cancer. Women under 65 are now more likely than men to be diagnosed with lung cancer.
And the researchers said progress against pancreatic cancer was “lagging.” Pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. and is becoming more common and more deadly. Most people with pancreatic cancer have just an 8% chance of living at least five years past diagnosis.
Several other types of cancer also were reported as becoming more deadly, including mouth cancer and, among women, cancers of the uterus and liver.
Using data from 2018, 2019, and 2021, the researchers estimated that the odds of being diagnosed with invasive cancer based on a person’s age and gender, were:
- Birth to age 49: 3.4% for males and 5.9% for females
- 50 to 64 years old: 11.3% for men and 10.8% for women
- 65 to 84 years old: 31.3% for men and 24.2% for women
- 85 years or older: 18.7% for men and 14.1% for women
