COVID-19 and Reductions in Cancer Mortality

That is the topic of a commentary I wrote with co-authors Joanna MacEwan and Farzad Ali, titled “Does COVID-19 Threaten the Progress Pharmaceuticals Have Made in Reducing Cancer Mortality Over the Last 20 Years?” An excerpt is below:

Cancer mortality rates have fallen significantly over the last 20 years. Between 2000 and 2010, overall age-adjusted cancer mortality rates decreased by about 1% per year globally.¹ In the United States, the trend has been equally pronounced. Overall, the US cancer mortality rate declined by 29% between 1991 and 2017, translating into an estimated 2.9 million fewer cancer deaths.² Notably, cancer mortality rates fell by 2.2% between 2016 and 2017, the sharpest single-year drop on record.² 
This leaves us with 2 key questions: what factors are the primary causes of the reduction in cancer mortality, and does COVID-19 threaten to stall this progress?³ 

We discuss the role of pharmaceuticals in this decline in cancer mortality and what can be done to insure cancer mortality continues to fall even during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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