You’re more likely to get cancer as you get older. In fact, age is the biggest risk factor for the disease. More than nine out of 10 cancers are diagnosed in people 45 and older. Those older than 74 make up almost 28% of all new cancer cases.
Researchers aren’t sure why this is so. It could be that the passing decades give your cells more time to turn faulty, or mutate, and grow into cancer. Or older age simply means you’ve been exposed to sunlight, cigarette smoke, chemicals, and other cancer-causing agents for longer. It’s likely a combination of time and exposure that raises the risk of getting cancer at an older age.
Cancer Incidence
In the U.S., the number of new cancer cases per year has been stable from 2012 – 2021. Incidence rates give an important but incomplete picture of cancer. For example, cancer incidence can go up if more people are getting screened. Such was the case during the early 1990s, when incidences of prostate cancer in men surged after widespread testing.
An estimated 2 million people in the U.S. were expected to be diagnosed with cancer in 2024. About 612,000 people were expected to die from any type of cancer that year. Cancer death rates have improved steadily since the early 1990s.
