(The Economist) – Progress has been remarkable. Death rates are down substantially, and are likely to fall further

In fact, things are better than many realise. The progress is plain from the data and there is every reason to think it will continue. Cancer is related to age. If you strip out longer lifespans, it becomes clear that in the rich world the early 1990s were an inflection point. Since then, the age-adjusted death rate has been falling, slowly but steadily, year after year. In America the rate is now about a third lower than in the 1990s. The trend is similar in other developed countries.

What some scientists hoped would be a blitzkrieg has turned out to be a steady but successful war of attrition. Some victories have been spectacular. Childhood leukaemia used to be virtually a death sentence; now it has a five-year survival rate above 90%. Yet because cancer is not one illness, but a whole category, much of the progress has come not from big breakthroughs, but thousands of smaller advances in screening, surgery and drugs. (Read More)