WASHINGTON, March 11 (NNN-Xinhua) — Almost 603,000 people died of cancer in the United States in 2020, but cancer death rates have continued to drop in the country, according to data released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Cancer remained the second leading cause of death in 2020, after heart diseases, while COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death, according to the CDC.
Among the 602,350 cancer deaths in the United States, 284,619 were females and 317,731 males, according to the CDC data.
Lung cancer was the leading cause of cancer death, accounting for 23 percent of all deaths. Other common types were cancers of the colon and rectum, pancreas, female breast, prostate, and liver and intrahepatic bile duct, according to the CDC.
In the past 20 years from 2001 to 2020, cancer death rates went down 27 percent, from 196.5 to 144.1 deaths per 100,000 population. — NNN-XINHUA
