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The President of the United States, Joe Biden, has announced his desire to reduce cancer mortality by 50% by 2047. According to a study, additional efforts will have to be made because if progress continues in the same way, the reduction will be “only” 44%.
The fight against cancer is a theme particularly close to US President Joe Biden, who lost his son to brain cancer in 2015. On February 2, 2022, he announced, with his wife Jill Biden, a cancer death rate target halved as part of Operation Moonshot.
Constant but insufficient progress to reach 50%
Researchers from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) have looked into achieving this goal. They looked at trends in age-standardized cancer incidence, survival, and death rates from 2000 to 2019 for all cancers combined, as well as for the six cancers that together account for 57% of cancer deaths in the states. -United :
- Lung cancer ;
- colorectal cancer;
- pancreatic cancer;
- breast cancer;
- Prostate cancer;
- Liver cancer.
The authors recalled that it was also necessary to prevent deaths from other cancers, in particular rare tumors and pediatric cancers. They then projected the overall cancer death rate to 2047 assuming that current trends would continue.
Beyond medication, access to care is essential
In their projections, the researchers showed that if the most recent trend in deaths from all cancers combined continues, the overall age-adjusted cancer death rate is expected to decline by 44% by 2047, which is less than the 50% improvement in the cancer death rate targeted by Joe Biden.
“Achieving a 50% reduction in cancer mortality in 25 years will be impossible without addressing cancer-related health equity.” explains Dr. Monica M. Bertagnolli, director of the NCI, the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the NIH.
Innovation could be a game-changer
However, according to the researchers, this goal is not impossible.
For Professor Meredith Shiels, of the NCI Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, who led the study, it’s down to a few things, including greater access to care: “We know that many tools have significantly reduced cancer death rates for specific cancers, and if used more widely, with better access, we believe this ambitious goal could be achievable.”
Finally, for his colleague, Professor Neal D. Freedman, who also worked on this study, continuous innovation is very important. “If there are new blockbuster drugs for common cancers, for example, or really great new screening tests, or a combination of those things, that would go a long way toward reducing cancer mortality.” he concludes.
In just a few years, the fight against cancer has seen the emergence of targeted therapies, immunotherapy, and major advances in surgery, diagnosis, screening and prevention. The emergence of artificial intelligence associated with imaging and genetic data could lead to significant changes in the management of certain cancers.