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Cancer Trends Progress Report: April 2022 Publication
October 3, 2022 
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The National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) 20th anniversary edition of the Cancer Trends Progress Report (CTPR) is now available to the public. The CTPR includes US cancer trends and control measures regarding cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment, life after diagnosis, and end of life. The measures featured in the report are closely aligned with the health objectives from the Department of Health and Human Services Healthy People 2030 target measures, and includes topics about tobacco use, diet, sun-protective behavior, vaccinations, cancer screening, cancer incidence, survival, mortality, and more.
One of the most widely used sections of the CTPR is the Summary Tables which feature visual representations of the current state of cancer in comparison to the Healthy People 2030 target measures. The tables are coded by a series of colored lines indicating which direction current topics are trending in. A green line indicates a trend headed in the right direction, red indicates a trend headed in the wrong direction, black indicates a stable or non-significant change in trend, purple represents an indeterminate trend, and blue is the Healthy People 2030 target. Some positive ‘green’ trends include chemotherapy treatments for advanced stages of melanoma of the skin, a steady decline in tobacco use, and a steady decline of cancer mortalities. ‘Red’ trends headed in the wrong direction include a continued increase in obesity among cancer survivors, a decrease in up-to-date cervical cancer screenings for women aged 21-65 years of age, and a decrease in sun-protective behaviors for adults aged 18 years and older.
The April 2022 publication includes four new topics: sleep, evidence-based smoking cessation aids, outdoor tanning, and melanoma of the skin treatment. Although summary tables are unavailable for sleep, the CTPR includes data on the topic such as: in 2020, 72.1% of adults aged 18 years and older got sufficient sleep. Poor sleep is associated with poor treatment efficacy, adverse physical and mental health outcomes, and increased mortality in cancer survivors. The April 2022 report advises that adults 18-60 years of age receive seven or more hours a night of sleep, adults 31-64 years of age receive seven to nine hours of sleep a night, and adults 65 years and older receive seven to eight hours of sleep a night. In addition to getting enough sleep, the CTPR provides information on several protective behaviors that may prevent cancer. The latest data on evidence-based smoking cessation aids show that in 2018 and 2019, 33.7% of smokers aged 18 years and older who attempted to quit in the past year used a smoking cessation aid in the quit attempt. Outdoor tanning is another new topic covered in the April 2022 CTPR. Overall, 33.7% of US adults reported intentional outdoor tanning in the last 12-months, and outdoor tanning was more common among women (38.7%) than men (28.7%) and among adults aged under 25 years (45.1%) than those aged 25 years and over (32%), and among sun-sensitive adults (39.9%) than adults who are not sun-sensitive (29.2%). From the latest data on the new measure on melanoma of the skin treatment, the CTPR shows that in 2018, 79.4% of stage III or IV melanoma of the skin patients aged 20 years and older received chemotherapy.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, new procedures were adopted in the process of gathering information for the CTPR. Thus, it is recommended that the CTPR results in the April 2022 publication should not be used in comparison to data and results from previous report iterations.
The CTPR can be used to help understand cancer and its effects on the US population, as well as to showcase the results of efforts, strategies, and research from years past. To learn more about cancer trends in the US, see the CTPR Trends at a Glance. For information regarding specific cancers, see SEER’s Cancer Stat Facts sheets.