ATLANTA – For the first time in more than 70 years, annual cancer deaths in the United States have fallen, a turning point in the war on cancer likely achieved by declines in smoking and better tumor detection and treatment.

The number of cancer deaths dropped to 556,902 in 2003, down from 557,271 the year before, according to a recently completed review of U.S. death certificates by the National Center for Health Statistics.

“Even though it’s a small amount, it’s an important milestone,” said Dr. Michael Thun, who directs epidemiological research for the American Cancer Society.

It’s the first annual decrease in total cancer deaths since 1930, according to a cancer society analysis of federal death data.

For more than a decade, health statisticians have charted annual drops of about 1 percent in the cancer death rate – the calculated number of deaths per 100,000 people. But the actual number of cancer deaths still rose each year because the growth in total population outpaced the falling death rates.

“Finally, the declining rates have surpassed the increasing size of the population,” said Rebecca Siegel, a Cancer Society epidemiologist.

According to Dr. Dora Ann Mills, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Maine’s cancer death rate is also dropping, although it remains higher than the national average as it has for many years.

According to the Maine cancer registry, cancer deaths here dropped from 226.3 per 100,000 population in 1990 to 213.9 per 100,000 in 2002, the most recent year for which state data is available. Maine’s population has remained relatively stable and the actual number of deaths has declined.

“For our parents’ generation, a diagnosis of cancer was a death sentence,” Mills observed. “But it is increasingly becoming a chronic disease that is both preventable and survivable.”

Mills attributes the decrease in cancer deaths in Maine to improved screening and treatment, especially for breast and cervical cancers. Screening rates for colon and prostate cancers in Maine are still lower than they should be, she indicated, and the state has recently launched a series of public service messages to encourage Mainers to raise the issue of routine cancer screening with their health care providers.

Lung cancer is the most lethal cancer in Maine, followed by breast, prostate and colon cancers, Mills said. Strong anti-smoking policies enacted in recent years won’t start driving down the rate of deaths related to lung cancers in Maine for several more years, Mills said, but eventually she expects that number to “plummet.”

Experts are attributing the nationwide success to declines in smoking and the earlier detection and more effective treatment of tumors. Death rates have fallen for lung, breast, prostate and colorectal cancer, according to American Cancer Society officials, who analyzed the federal death data.

Those are the four most common cancers, which together account for 51 percent of all U.S. cancer deaths.

The breast cancer death rate has been dropping about 2 percent annually since 1990, a decline attributed to earlier detection and better treatment. The colon and rectum cancer death rate, shrinking by 2 percent each year since 1984, is also attributed to better screening. The prostate cancer death rate has been declining 4 percent annually since 1994, though the reasons for that are still being studied.

The lung cancer death rate for men, dropping about 2 percent a year since 1991, is because of reductions in smoking. The lung cancer death rate for women, however, has held steady, a sign that reflects a lag in the epidemic among women, who took up smoking later.

The total number of cancer deaths among women actually rose by 409 from 2002 to 2003. Among men, deaths fell by 778, resulting in a net decrease of 369 total cancer deaths.

With such a small drop in deaths, it’s possible they will rise again when 2004 data is tabulated, said Jack Mandel, chairman of epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.

Cancer is diagnosed more often in older people than younger people, and the large and aging population of baby boomers may push cancer statistics a bit. Even so, that should be offset by treatment improvements and declines in smoking and cancer incidence.

“I still think we’re going to see a decline,” Mandel said.

The drop in cancer deaths will be cheered by many in the medical community, said Arthur Caplan, a University of Pennsylvania bioethicist.

“The war on cancer” has not always gone well in the public’s eyes, Caplan noted. Despite decades of scientific research and screening campaigns, radiation and chemotherapy cancer treatments remained harsh and total deaths continued to rise, he noted.

“It’s no surprise this dip in numbers would be greeted with joy by ‘the commanders,’ if you will, in the war on cancer,” Caplan said.

But genetics research and other recent scientific innovations, coupled with the decline in deaths, may be a legitimate cause for celebration, he added.

“This number shows that, perhaps, a corner has been turned,” Caplan said.

Bangor Daily News reporter Meg Haskell has contributed to this article.