Death rates for the most common type of lung cancer are on the decline, likely due to a decrease in incidence and advance in treatments, a new study suggests.
For the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers analyzed data from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registry. They examined mortality trends attributed to non-small-cell lung cancer and small-cell lung cancer, the two main types of lung cancer.
Non-small-cell lung cancer is the most common type, making up about 80 percent to 85 percent of lung cancers, according to the American Cancer Society.
They found that deaths from non-small-cell lung cancer decreased sharply between 2013 and 2016. Among men, deaths from non-small-cell lung cancer decreased 6.3 percent annually from 2013 through 2016, and among women, deaths fell 5.9 percent a year from 2014 through 2016, STAT News reports.
Incidence of non-small-cell lung cancer declined among men by 3.1 percent annually from 2008 through 2016. It decreased among women by 1.5 percent annually from 2006 to 2016, according to STAT.