In Canada, over the past five years, the age-standardized mortality rate for cancer dropped from 180.4 to 173.7 per 100,000 population, an improvement of 3.7%. However, during this same period, mortality rates for cancer in the United States improved nearly twice as much, dropping 7.5% during the same period.

Perhaps, even more surprising than the differences in the improvement in age-standardized mortality rates, is the fact that in 2004, for the first time ever, the actual number of cancer deaths in the United States dropped from the previous year. Over the last five years the number of people in the United States who have died of cancer has increased only 0.1%, from 553,091 in 2000 to 553,888 in 2004. By comparison, in Canada during the same period the number of people who died from cancer increased 7%.

Differences in access to new treatments between Canada and the United States may soon lead to better cancer outcomes in the United States than in Canada. Since the introduction of the new drug benefit under U.S. Medicare, American seniors now have access to virtually all new FDA approved cancer treatments. Conversely, provincial drugs plans in Canada lag far behind U.S. Medicare in providing access to new cancer drugs.

Statistics Canada.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics.