New AACR report has found U.S. Cancer death rate dropped 35% since 1991

The overall cancer death rate in the U.S. fell 35% between 1991 and 2024, a decline that has prevented more than 4.8 million cancer deaths, according to the American Association for Cancer Research’s (AACR) Cancer Progress Report 2026, released today.

The 16th AACR annual report was compiled by staff with a volunteer committee chaired by Keith T. Flaherty, M.D., AACR president for 2026-2027 and director of clinical research at Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute, alongside Margaret Foti, Ph.D., AACR's chief executive officer. AACR noted the report's purpose is to advance public understanding of cancer and advocate for robust, predictable federal investment in medical research.

The report draws on national cancer statistics from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program and the American Cancer Society's Cancer Statistics 2026 dataset, along with a review of FDA drug and device approvals from July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026. Data was also gathered from a survey of the past year's peer-reviewed cancer research literature. Based on that data, AACR projects 2,114,850 new cancer cases will be diagnosed and 626,140 people will die of cancer in the U.S. in 2026.

Survival Gains, Unevenly Shared

The mortality decline is uneven across cancer types. For example, ung cancer death rates fell an average of 4.2% a year between 2015 and 2024, driven largely by falling smoking rates along with better early detection and treatment; colorectal and female breast cancer deaths declined 1.3% and 1.2% a year over the same period.

Five-year relative survival for all cancers combined climbed to a record 71% among patients diagnosed between 2016 and 2022, up from 49% for those diagnosed in the mid-1970s, and survival gains reached metastatic disease too: 5-year relative survival for distant-stage cancers doubled, from 17% in the mid-1990s to 36% in 2016-2022.

Progress has not reached everyone equally. Data revealed that Black and American Indian or Alaska Native populations continue to have the highest cancer mortality rates, and cancer among adults ages 18 to 49, a pattern AACR noted early-onset cancer, was the only age group with a sustained rise in overall incidence between 1995 and 2021.

A news release by AACR found mixed evidence on GLP-1s and cancer risk: semaglutide tied to a 12% drop in obesity-related cancers, and liraglutide to higher thyroid and respiratory cancer risk.

That progress hasn't slowed the clinical pipeline, even as the funding behind it has stalled. The FDA approved 11 new anticancer therapeutics and expanded the indications of five already-approved drugs between July 2025 and June 2026, including the first checkpoint inhibitor cleared for ovarian cancer and the first therapy approved to delay progression of high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma.

AACR tied that pace of innovation to NIH's research budget, which the report says generated $94.15 billion in economic activity and supported nearly 391,000 jobs in fiscal year 2025 (FY 2025). That funding has since stalled: NIH's research budget fell in FY 2024 for the first time in nearly a decade, stayed flat in FY 2025, and rose only about 1% in FY 2026, a pace AACR says is not keeping up with rising research costs. The report also notes that in early 2025, the administration terminated more than 2,200 active NIH research grants.

“We are entering a remarkable moment in cancer research,” Flaherty said in the report, pointing to advances in genomics, immunology and AI that are opening new paths to therapies matched more precisely to each patient's disease.

Direct medical costs of cancer care in the U.S. totaled an estimated $236.2 billion in 2020 (in 2022 dollars), or about $129,500 per diagnosis, and are projected to top $245 billion by 2030, the report states. The news release also cited a $5.3 trillion, 30-year economic-toll estimate, with new cases projected to reach 2.5 million by 2050, a 19% rise.

Taken together, the report's strengths are that it synthesizes national cancer registry data, peer-reviewed literature and a year of FDA activity into one sourced reference document. A limitation is that the report is produced by a research advocacy organization with a direct stake in the federal funding levels it recommends, and its closing "Call to Action" doubles as AACR's own policy platform.

Some of the underlying screening guidance is also in limbo. The report noted the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has not convened since March 2025, delaying updated guidance for cervical and prostate cancer screening.

What AACR Wants Congress To Do

AACR's own recommendations, laid out in its Call to Action, urge Congress to provide at least $51.303 billion for NIH and $7.999 billion for NCI in fiscal year 2027, to stop the proposed OMB rule and to give early-career researchers more stability to build independent labs. A news release by AACR notes the Senate's block on the rule runs only through Dec. 11, 2026.

“Cancer is not partisan,” the report states. “Decisions about which research moves forward must be guided by scientific merit, not political priorities.”