The American Cancer Society’s annual cancer trends report revealed a mix of news and statistics for 2025.
Cancer death rates have dropped 34% between 1991 and 2022, which the ACS attributes to early detection, smoking reduction and improvements in treatment.
While these numbers are encouraging, oncologists and cancer specialists still have concerns about some other factors.
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While the report shows continued progress on many fronts, certain areas remain of “significant concern,” Dr. Joshua Strauss, an attending hematologist and medical oncologist at Advanced Care Oncology and Hematology Associates of the Atlantic Medical Group in Morristown, New Jersey, shared with Fox News Digital.
Below are some of the most concerning trends, according to experts.
1. Cancer deaths not improving in younger individuals
Cancer prevalence in younger individuals and adolescents has continued to rise, according to the report, with rates in teens slowly increasing by 0.7% each year.
Cancer is the leading disease-related cause of death among children and adolescents — most commonly leukemia, brain cancer and lymphoma.
In 2025, the ACS estimates that 9,550 kids up to 14 years old and 5,140 adolescents aged 15 to 19 will be diagnosed with cancer, and that 1,050 children and 600 adolescents will die.
Dr. Paul Oberstein, a gastrointestinal medical oncologist and section chief of GI Medical Oncology at NYU Langone Perlmutter Cancer Center, reiterated that people below age 50 are seeing higher rates of cancer deaths.
“It’s shown in multiple cancers,” he told Fox News Digital. “I would say the biggest finding is in young women with breast cancer.”
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The prevalence of GI (gastrointestinal) cancers is also increasing among younger adults, including pancreatic and colon cancer.
Experts have varying hypotheses on why young people are being diagnosed more often, including diet, exposure to microplastics or other environmental triggers, according to Oberstein.
“We don’t have a good explanation, and we need to invest in discovering why this might be the case so that we can change it,” he said.
2. Cervical cancer continues to pose unnecessary threat
Cervical cancer is one of the few cancers that can be prevented, yet thousands of women are still at risk.
While cervical cancer incidence rates decreased by more than half from the mid-1970s to the mid-2000s due to screening uptake, these numbers have since stabilized, according to the report.
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A projected 13,000 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2025 and 4,000 will die, according to Dr. Jessica Shepherd, a board-certified obstetrician gynecologist in Dallas, Texas.
“Cervical cancer in women from 30 to 44 is increasing,” she told Fox News Digital. “But also, this is a cancer that has the potential to be eradicated, if not eliminated, because of us knowing the understanding of HPV and its prevalence in the disease.”
HPV (human papillomavirus infection), the most common cause of cervical cancer, can be detected through testing.
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“We have innovation and technology that should be decreasing certain cervical cancer rates,” Shepherd said.
3. Some communities lack healthcare access
The ACS report found that Native Americans and Black people continue to die at higher rates than White people for several different cancers.
Among cervical cancer patients, the death rate in Black women and Native American women is 50% and 70% higher than in white women.
The five-year relative survival rate for cervical cancer in Black women is 58% compared to 67% of White women, the report found.
This discrepancy in mortality rate is most likely due to lack of access to doctors and regular screenings, added Shepherd, who pushed for more research, awareness and public education.
“Cervical cancer is preventable through screening with the Pap plus HPV and co-testing,” she said. “If we had the ability to have more potential early detection, then we could see abnormalities in cells … before it actually gets to cancer and could take the time to address it.”
4. GI cancer diagnoses are worsening
Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, such as pancreatic, liver, colorectal and stomach cancers, are all considered highly deadly.
The ACS report noted that colorectal diagnoses in men and women under the age of 65 have continued to increase.
Between 2012 and 2021, colorectal cancer incidence rates increased by 2.4% each year in people younger than 50 and by 0.4% per year in adults 50 to 64.
Progress against pancreatic cancer is also trailing other cancers, according to the report, as incidence and mortality rates increase by 1% each year in men and women.
The ACS noted that in 2025, an estimated 67,440 new cases of pancreatic cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S. and 51,980 people will die from it.
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The death rate for pancreatic cancer has increased by 0.2% to 0.3% each year in men and women, and the five-year relative survival rate is 13%, which Strauss described as “dismal.”
Oberstein, a GI specialist, noted that these types of cancers “often have very poor outcomes,” although there have been some improvements in early detection and treatment over the last few decades.
“The biggest benefit we’ve seen in terms of mortality comes from earlier detection of GI cancers,” he told Fox News Digital, adding that colon cancer has the best outcomes when detected early.
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“But we really need to double down on trying to detect stomach cancer, liver cancer and especially pancreatic cancer earlier in order to make a big difference,” Oberstein said.
Fox News Digital’s Melissa Rudy contributed to this report.
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