A group of cancer and health organizations have recently reported that there has been a notable decline in the annual number of cancer diagnoses and cancer deaths in the United States.

Published in the online edition of Cancer, December 7 edition, the report has been compiled on the basis of the data forwarded by the American Cancer Society, the US National Cancer Institute, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries.

The report stated that the number of cancer incidence and deaths have come down significantly for both men and women, and for most racial/ethnic populations, due to measures like improved screening procedures, new treatments and the healthier living.

Statistics revealed that the there was a nearly 1 percent fall in the new diagnoses for all types of cancer in the US during the years 1999 to 2006; with the number of cancer deaths dropping 1.6 percent per year between 2001 and 2006.

Noting that there is a noticeable “downturn in some cancers,” the report’s author Brenda K. Edwards, associate director of the Surveillance Research Program at the US National Cancer Institute, said the battle with cancer still continues.

Edwards said: “We see the downturn in mortality, but we still have almost 1.5 million people with new cancer diagnoses in 2009. So, we still have a large number of people affected.”