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Comment by TurkishPoptart | Hacker News Reader

Could it be that people are dying from opioid ODs, suicide, and other means that tragically cut lives short? Cancer risk seems to be a function of time and entropy. The longer someone lives, the more likely I suspect they'll succumb to cancer eventually.

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That was my first thought, but the article specifically addresses that. It's due to improved treatments for lung cancer. Take lung cancer out of the data and the death rate improved by 1.4% last year, which is basically the same as the baseline 1.5%/year rate that cancer deaths have been dropping since 1991. If it were due to the opioid epidemic, you also wouldn't see that sustained drop over 3 decades - life expectancy in the U.S. has only been falling for 3 years.

I wonder if this drop can be attributed to the approval of pembroluzimab? Our oncologists speak highly of it and it got to market around the mentioned time period

Absolutely. They mention immunotherapy in the article, and pembro (aka Keytruda) is the best-selling drug in that class. Another big one that was introduced around the same time is nivolumab (aka Opdivo). Immunotherapy has really transformed certain parts of oncology (including melanoma, which they mention in the article as well), which is why some of the foundational researchers won the Nobel last year.

I think it’s a combination of immunotherapy for melanoma, bladder, renal cell and improved targeted therapy in certain types of lung adenocarcinoma.

Decommissioning coal plants & spinning up natural gas plants could hypothetically help with lung cancer too.

You will see a lot less people dying from respiratory issues.

For coal mine workers, stopping further damage to their lungs may reduce the chance of tumors developing in those damaged areas.

The most significant variable is newer treatments though because the benefit is so huge compared to previous gold standard treatments that this variable cannot be ignored.

Long term, sure. Short term, you'd be looking at the link between air quality levels and chronic diseases like COPD, asthma, and congestive heart failure.

That might show up as an increase in the number of living people with these conditions.

Cancer rates are declining except for skin cancer. Detection and treatment is getting better.

In unrelated news, the US alcohol-related death count has doubled

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/08/794772148/alcohol-related-dea...

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