U.S. cancer survivor count grows

ATLANTA - The number of cancer survivors in the United States is increasing by hundreds of thousands a year, and now includes roughly one in 20 adults.

Health officials attribute the increase in part to earlier detection and better treatment. Demographics are a factor, too. Cancer is most common in people 65 and older, and the nation's elderly population is growing.

In a report released Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that in 2007 there were about 11.7 million Americans with a history of cancer.

Forty years ago, there were about three million cancer survivors. That increased to 10 million in 2001 and to 11.4 million in 2006.

• 

  Chemotherapy medicine is readied for William Darker of Imperial Beach, Calif., as he undergoes a unique cancer treatment that uses ultra-high doses of chemotherapy that are isolated to the liver, at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., Tuesday, March 24, 2009. (AP / J. Scott Applewhite)