Cancer, American Cancer Society | featured news

Cancer has surpassed heart disease to become the leading cause of death among Hispanics in the United States, according to an American Cancer Society report released Monday.

Cancer-related deaths in the United States are dropping — and have been for the past two decades — according to this year's annual report by the American Cancer Society. And some of the largest reductions came in cases involving the biggest killers, including breast, colon, lung, and prostate cancers. The decline came thanks mostly to early detection by increasingly sophisticated screening methods, and advances in treatment.

Cancer is the world's top "economic killer" as well as its likely leading cause of death, the American Cancer Society contends in a new report it will present at a global cancer conference in China this week.