Cancer rates in young and middle-aged women are rising, surpassing those in men of the same age—most alarmingly in women under 50, whose rates are now 82% higher than those of their male counterparts.
It’s among the “striking trends” related to age and gender found in the American Cancer Society’s latest cancer statistics report, said ACS chief scientific officer Dr. William Dahut, who presented highlights at a press conference this week.
There was also good news in the 2025 report, released on Thursday: The American cancer mortality rate is down overall, declining 34% between 1991 and 2022 because of smoking reductions, earlier detection, and improved treatments, representing approximately 4.5 million prevented deaths.
“Continued reductions in cancer mortality because of drops in smoking, better treatment, and earlier detection is certainly great news,” said lead author and ACS senior scientific director Rebecca Siegel in a news release.
“However,” she noted, “this progress is tempered by rising incidence in young and middle-aged women, who are often the family caregivers, and a shifting cancer burden from men to women, harkening back to the early 1900s when cancer was more common in women.”
And despite overall declines in cancer mortality, death rates are increasing for cancers of the mouth and oral cavities, pancreas, lining of the uterus, and liver (for women).
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S., behind heart disease, and the leading cause among those under 85. Overall, in 2025, there will be an estimated 2,041,910 new cancer diagnoses in the U.S. (5,600 each day) and 618,120 cancer deaths, according to the report.
To compile it, ACS used data from national cancer registries through 2021 and mortality data collected from the National Center for Health Statistics through 2022, using .
The gender gap
While men, since the later 1900s and particularly in the ’90s, have had a higher cancer incidence than women, incidence rates in women 50-64 years of age have now surpassed those in men. (Incidence refers to the newly identified cases of a disease or condition per population at risk over a specified timeframe.) The higher rates in women under 50—82% higher than their male counterparts, up from 51% in 2002—are being driven largely by breast and thyroid cancers, said Dahut.
The only cancer for which survival has decreased over the past four decades is one specific to women: endometrial cancer (also called uterine corpus cancer), which is the fourth most common cancer in women and the fifth most common cause of cancer death. Progress “has lagged behind other common cancers, at least in part reflecting persistent underfunding,” the report notes.
Also notable is that women’s lung cancer rates surpassed those of men in the under-65 population for the first time in 2021.
“Now, if you’re a woman under 65, you have a greater chance of developing lung cancer than a man of that age,” said Dahut. It’s something that in part reflects tobacco trends, he noted, and the fact that women began smoking later than men and were slower to quit—although 20% of lung cancer diagnoses still come from non-smokers.
Plus, he adds, overall screening rates for lung cancer are “abysmal,” as one must fit into strict criteria for testing, including having a 20-pack-a-year history. “We are interested in ways to detect earlier on, even if [patients] don’t fit into traditional guidelines,” Dahut said.
More important cancer-trend highlights
Other findings in the ACS report, also published today in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, include the following:
- “Alarming” cancer mortality inequalities persist: Rates in Native American people are two to three times higher than white people for kidney, liver, stomach, and cervical cancers. Black people are twice as likely to die than white people from prostate, stomach, and uterine corpus cancers, and 50% more likely to die from cervical cancer, which is preventable.
- Pancreatic cancer deaths: The third leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. is seeing an increase in both incidence and mortality rates.
- Climbing incidence rates for specific cancers: Rates continue to climb for cancers of the breast (for women), prostate, pancreas, uterus, liver (for women), mouth (as associated with the human papillomavirus), and skin in the form of melanoma (for women).
- Colorectal cancer: The rate of new diagnoses of colorectal cancer in men and women under 65 and cervical cancer in women 30-44 has increased.
- Kids and adolescents: Cancer incidence among adolescents 15-19 has continued to rise, while incidence in children 14 and under has declined. Mortality rates in children have dropped by 70% and by 63% in adolescents since 1970, thanks largely to improved leukemia treatments.
What can I do about cancer?
“There is a really important link between risk and family history,” said Dahut, noting that this report is a “call-out for people to understand their family history better.” And knowing that history, he stressed, will guide individual cancer screening guidelines.
Also important is to be “proactive on diet,” avoiding ultra-processed foods and eating foods rich in nutrients and antioxidants that are largely plant-based; to regularly do some form of exercise; and to avoid known carcinogens including tobacco and alcohol—which has a clear link to at least seven types of cancer and just prompted the U.S. Surgeon General to call for a cancer warning on alcohol labels.
Hopefully the data contained in the new ACS report will help the medical world make a difference to future outcomes of individuals, said Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick, interim chief executive officer of ACS, in the news release.
“This report underscores the need to increase investment in both cancer treatment and care, including equitable screening programs, especially for underserved groups of patients and survivors. Screening programs are a critical component of early detection, and expanding access to these services will save countless lives,” he said.
“We also must address these shifts in cancer incidence, mainly among women,” Frederick added. “A concerted effort between healthcare providers, policymakers and communities needs to be prioritized to assess where and why mortality rates are rising.”
More on cancer:
