[pathdependent]

It was a "well done visual," and does put some things into perspective. For example, the "War on Cancer" began in about 1971. While I'm optimistic about the near-term future in cancer treatment, the chart doesn't reflect much historic clinical success.

[thisisnotmyname]

I'd encourage a different interpretation of the data: Cancer holding steady actually is an improvement.

Everyone is guaranteed to die of something, and the longer you live the likelihood of that something being cancer greatly increases. So as people shift away from other categories, i.e. heart disease and childbirth, and live longer, they're going to shift towards the cancer category. I'm actually amazed that cancer hasn't gone up significantly.

[pathdependent]

This is a very good point. Although the data (at this link) are not isolated, using a GUI window as a ruler, you can see a clear decrease, just not a visually compelling one. And yes, I agree that as you reduce the mortality associated with other diseases, getting cancer becomes more likely.

What would be more interesting to see, in this particular context, is the mortality associated with different disease groups for different age cohorts. For example, how has the treatment for cancer progressed for people between 40 and 50, rather than all cohorts at once.

[seandbarrett]

The yellow band is also getting eaten from below by the blue (presumably AIDS deaths?).

US median age grew by about 2 years per decade between 1990-2000 so that also supports thisisnotmyname's point.

Some of the decline may be due to lifestyle changes (e.g. lung cancer has probably peaked in the US) but there has also been dramatic progress in treatment for some cancers (Breast, testicular, Hodkin's).

[pathdependent]

Agreed.

Also, some of the recent treatment modalities are genuinely revolutionary. For example, Gleevec (subsequently exposed problems aside) is pretty damn amazing. Obviously, new things are becoming possible because of a long-growing body of research. The question is whether we have reached the tipping point. As I said previously, I'm optimistic -- I think we have. That being said, cancer is fucking complex and even if we were at some tipping point, progress is measured in years and decades, not weeks as the breathless popsci articles always seem to imply.

[PakG1]

If people were to shift away from heart disease, etc, towards cancer over time, the death rate due to cancer would be going up, not holding steady.

I think you're making a poor assumption that if people move away from heart disease, etc, that they would automatically move towards cancer. If such a move happens, there would have to be an external causation factor for that.

Holding steady would indicate to me that either our efforts to combat cancer haven't improved at all, or our efforts to combat cancer are only keeping pace with the increase in cancer rates due to increased toxins in our daily environment or whatever. This talks about death rates due to cancer, not cancer incident rates, so either of these 2 scenarios are plausible (and I'm sure there are other possibilities I'm not able to imagine).

[thisisnotmyname]

In most cases, cancer progression results from cumulative genetic damage, which is strongly linked to aging. See, e.g. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7155/full/nature0...

[PakG1]

Thank you, I did not know that. That changes the picture quite a bit, though I'd be curious by how much.

This is quite a long article, which I can't afford the time to read right now. Can someone answer the critical question for me, which is: is aging found to be a causative factor in cumulative genetic damage and also cancer, or is it only known to be correlated at this point?

[001sky]

This is an interesting point. It makes you wonder about the general macro considerations around life pro-longing technology. You solve one risk, but then something like cancer either remains or even increases.

Tackling the cancer problem is exciting but also worrisome at the same time. It’s an old problem. Nixon said in 1970 that we’d win the War on Cancer by ’76. People have been working on it for 40 years. So while we’re 40 years closer to a solution, it also seems farther away than ever. Doesn’t the fact that it’s taken so long mean that it’s an incredibly hard problem that won’t be solved soon?

http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/24253160557/peter-thiels...

edit: reference

[mahyarm]

Aging is a defense against cancer. There is a 'cancer probability hump' that tops up around your 60s. After that age, your probability of having cancer actually decreases significantly.

[bstpierre]

"Cancer" is a fairly wide range of diseases. There are specific diseases that have had significant success. I don't have historical data handy, but I recall reading that Hodgkin's Lymphoma went from something like a 10% survival rate 30 years ago to something like 80-90% today.

[HeyImAlex]

Looking at the chart, the only things that have significantly changed are heart disease, birth defects and perinatal conditions of newborns.