Some Common Types of Cancer and their Prognoses 

Cancer is a horrific debilitating disease that continues to increase in prevalence in the Western world.  It is the second leading cause of mortality in the United States and is a disease that scientists have struggled to control despite hundreds of millions of dollars poured into cancer research.  The disease is caused by mutations at the cellular level which cause the affected tissue to grow at an uncontrollable rate.  There are hundreds types of cancer that medical science has to content with.

Cancers are generally classified by the type of body tissue that they affect.  The most prevalent form of cancer in the United States is breast cancer which primarily affects women.  Roughly 232,000 thousand new cases are diagnosed every year.  Luckily, due to increased awareness of the dangers of the disease and a high rate of primary screening through mammograms, it is often caught early enough to lead to a good prognosis.  As a result, only about 40,000 women per year die from the disease.

Lung cancer is the second most common type of cancer in the United States with roughly 221,000 new cases diagnosed every year.  Unlike breast cancer, the prognosis is quite poor with 158,000 people dying of the disease per year.  This is more than three times the amount of deaths associated with any other single type of cancer.  It is believed that smoking has made a huge contribution to these numbers.

Prostate cancer is to men what breast cancer is to women.  It represents the third most common type of cancer in the United States with just under 221,000 cases diagnosed each year.  Similar to breast cancer, primary prevention using tests such as the PSA and routine prostate exams have helped to make this a very survivable cancer.  There are only roughly 28,000 deaths per year from prostate cancer despite the high number diagnosed cases.

Colorectal cancer has just over half the incidence of new cases versus the top three at 133,000 per year; however, it accounts for the second most number of deaths at 50,000 per year.  There are cancer types with a much poorer prognosis, however. At 41,000 deaths per year pancreatic cancer accounts for more annual deaths than breast cancer despite having an incidence of only 49,000 per year.  It is considered to be the most deadly of the common cancers, goto this website and get more details.

There are many different types of cancer, each of which is associated with a different prognosis.  As our understanding of these diseases improves, hopefully diagnostic tests that have helped to reduce the incidence of breast and prostate cancer will be developed for some of the more deadly forms of the disease.