HOW CANCER WILL AFFECT AMERICANS IN 2016

Here’s the good news about cancer in America: More people than ever are surviving it. The cancer death rate has dropped by nearly 25 percent since its peak in 1991, thanks in part to declines in smoking, advances in prevention and detection and improved treatments.

And yet, as new statistics released Thursday by the American Cancer Society show, cancer remains a complex, confounding and pervasive problem throughout the United States. Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the nation, responsible for nearly 600,000 deaths each year, but cancer comes in a close second. In nearly two dozen states, significant drops in death from heart disease have made cancer the top killer.