A report showing continued decline in U.S. death rates from all cancers combined for men, women, and children also reflects declines in a number of urologic cancers in the last 10 years.

A concurrent European study covering much of the same period that analyzed death rates there for prostate, testis, bladder, and kidney cancer found similar trends (Eur Urol 2011; 60:1-15).

In the U.S., the Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2008, published in the journal Cancer, shows that death rates decreased for prostate and kidney cancer along with nine other of the 17 most common cancers among men during the most recent 10-year (1999-2008) and 5-year (2004-2008) periods (Cancer March 28, 2012).

Prostate cancer deaths were down 3.6% and kidney and renal pelvis cancer deaths down 0.2% for 1999-2008 and down 0.6% for 2004-2008. The urinary bladder cancer rate was up 0.1%.

In women, urinary bladder cancer deaths were down 0.4% for both periods and kidney and renal pelvis cancer deaths were down 0.5% for 1999-2008 and down 1.3% for 2004-2008, along with 12 other of the 18 most common cancers among women.

"The continued declines in death rates for all cancers, as well as the overall drop in incidence, is powerful evidence that the nation's investment in cancer research produces life-saving approaches to cancer prevention, screening, diagnosis, and treatment," said Harold E. Varmus, MD, of the National Cancer Institute. "But, it is also important to note that investments we make today are critical if we hope to see these declines in incidence and death from cancer reflected in future Reports to the Nation."

The study citing changes in European mortality from urologic cancers used World Health Organization data for 33 countries to analyze trends in death from cancer of the prostate, testis, bladder, and kidney from 1970 to 2008.

Within just the European Union, mortality from prostate cancer reached a peak in 1995 at 15.0 per 100,000 men and declined to 12.5 per 100,000 in 2006. Testicular cancer mortality declined from 0.75 in 1980 to 0.32 per 100,000 men in 2006, with stronger declines up to the late 1990s and an apparent leveling off in rates thereafter. Bladder cancer mortality was stable until 1992 and declined thereafter from 7.3 to 5.5 per 100,000 men and from 1.5 to 1.2 per 100,000 women in 2006.

Between 1994 and 2006, mortality from kidney cancer declined from 4.9 to 4.3 per 100,000 in EU men and from 2.1 to 1.8 per 100,000 in EU women.