Cancer continues to be a major killer in the United States. In 2025 alone, more than two million new cases were diagnosed, excluding non-melanoma skin cancers, and an estimated 618,000 people died from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. That's roughly 1,700 deaths every day. Breast cancer remains the most commonly diagnosed cancer, with nearly 320,000 new cases estimated last year. The next most widespread forms of the disease were prostate cancer at over 131,000 and lung and bronchus cancer at over 226,000 new cases.
In terms of deaths, lung cancer was particularly deadly, with nearly 125,000 people having died from the disease in 2025. Pancreatic cancer and liver cancer, both not included in this list due to their comparatively lower numbers of expected cases (67,440; 42,240), also stand out for their high numbers of deaths (51,980 estimated deaths for pancreatic cancer; 30,090 deaths for cancer of the liver & intrahepatic bile duct).
According to the ACS, while the age-adjusted cancer death rate increased during much of the 20th century due to the smoking epidemic, it had dropped from its 1991 peak (-34 percent as of 2022), due to reductions in smoking, advances in treatment and early detection for some cancers.
Among children and adolescents, an estimated 9,550 children (aged 0 to 14 years) and 5,140 adolescents (15-19 years) were estimated to have been diagnosed with cancer in 1015, with 1,050 children and 600 adolescents having died from the disease. The most common cancers in children and adolescents are leukemia (28 percent and 13 percent, respectively), followed by brain, including benign and borderline malignant tumors (27 percent and 22 percent) and lymphoma (12 percent and 19 percent). Since 1970, the cancer death rate has declined by 70 percent in children and by 63 percent in adolescents, largely driven by improvements in treatment and high participation in clinical trials.
