Every year, many people pass away from cancer, which is often cited as the second-leading cause of death in the United States. Even as medical science gets better and better, this disease is still a serious danger to people of all ages.
To see the impact this has on the U.S. population, here are some of the statistics about how many people pass away every year from various types of cancer (deaths are estimated for 2019):
- Bladder cancer: 17,670
- Female breast cancer: 41,760
- Male breast cancer: 500
- Rectal and colon cancer: 51,020
- Endometrial cancer: 12,160
- Kidney cancer: 14,770
- Leukemia: 22,840
- Intrahepatic bile duct cancer and liver cancer: 31,780
- Lung cancer: 142,670
- Melanoma (skin cancer): 7,230
- Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma: 19,970
- Pancreatic cancer: 45,750
- Prostate cancer: 31,620
- Thyroid cancer: 2,170
It is important to remember that cancer types can come from different causes and may have different symptoms. For instance, not all who get lung cancer are smokers, and not all who get breast cancer, as the statistics show, are female.
With any type of cancer, in any patient, early detection helps. It’s always harder to treat cancer once it has gotten more advanced, and it can even spread to other parts of the body.
This is why it’s so dangerous when a doctor makes a mistake — like reading a scan incorrectly — and misses the cancer after it already exists. The patient will still likely discover it later, but it may be too late to save their life. In these cases, family members need to know what legal options they have at their disposal.