How about some good news for a change?

WASHINGTON - Cancer rates have dropped for the first time in the United States and previous declines in cancer deaths are accelerating, a report released on Tuesday showed as cancer-fighting efforts produced solid results. Regular screening for breast and colorectal cancer, declining smoking rates and improved treatments helped lead to the improvements described in a comprehensive study of cancer in the United States by government and private health experts. "This decline is seen in blacks, it's seen in whites, it's seen in Hispanics, it's seen in all Americans," Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, said in a telephone interview.

However, cancer remains the No. 2 killer of Americans, with more than half a million deaths annually, topped only by heart disease. And the report detailed worrisome regional differences in lung cancer trends tied closely to whether or not individual states are taking important steps to reduce smoking. Overall U.S. cancer death rates began falling in 1991 and these declines are getting steeper this decade, Brawley noted. "But the real news here is that this is first time that we've got declines in incidence (the rate of new cases per year). We've never had incidence go down since we've been keeping records starting in the 1930s," Brawley said. Link