4 troubling cancer trends you must know about in 2025

Cancer death rates have dropped 34% between 1991 and 2022, which the ACS attributes to early detection, smoking reduction and improvements in treatment.

While these numbers are encouraging, oncologists and cancer specialists still have concerns about some other factors.

While the report shows continued progress on many fronts, certain areas remain of "significant concern," Dr. Joshua Strauss, an attending hematologist and medical oncologist at Advanced Care Oncology and Hematology Associates of the Atlantic Medical Group in Morristown, New Jersey, shared with Fox News Digital.

Below are some of the most concerning trends, according to experts.

Cancer prevalence in younger individuals and adolescents has continued to rise, according to the report, with rates in teens slowly increasing by 0.7% each year.

In 2025, the ACS estimates that 9,550 kids up to 14 years old and 5,140 adolescents aged 15 to 19 will be diagnosed with cancer, and that 1,050 children and 600 adolescents will die.

Dr. Paul Oberstein, a gastrointestinal medical oncologist and section chief of GI Medical Oncology at NYU Langone Perlmutter Cancer Center, reiterated that people below age 50 are seeing higher rates of cancer deaths.

Experts have varying hypotheses on why young people are being diagnosed more often, including diet, exposure to microplastics or other environmental triggers, according to Oberstein.

While cervical cancer incidence rates decreased by more than half from the mid-1970s to the mid-2000s due to screening uptake, these numbers have since stabilized, according to the report.

A projected 13,000 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2025 and 4,000 will die, according to Dr. Jessica Shepherd, a board-certified obstetrician gynecologist in Dallas, Texas.

"Cervical cancer in women from 30 to 44 is increasing," she told Fox News Digital. "But also, this is a cancer that has the potential to be eradicated, if not eliminated, because of us knowing the understanding of HPV and its prevalence in the disease."

"We have innovation and technology that should be decreasing certain cervical cancer rates," Shepherd said.

The ACS report found that Native Americans and Black people continue to die at higher rates than White people for several different cancers.

Among cervical cancer patients, the death rate in Black women and Native American women is 50% and 70% higher than in white women.

The five-year relative survival rate for cervical cancer in Black women is 58% compared to 67% of White women, the report found.

This discrepancy in mortality rate is most likely due to lack of access to doctors and regular screenings, added Shepherd, who pushed for more research, awareness and public education.

Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, such as pancreatic, liver, colorectal and stomach cancers, are all considered highly deadly.

Between 2012 and 2021, colorectal cancer incidence rates increased by 2.4% each year in people younger than 50 and by 0.4% per year in adults 50 to 64.

The ACS noted that in 2025, an estimated 67,440 new cases of pancreatic cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S. and 51,980 people will die from it.

The death rate for pancreatic cancer has increased by 0.2% to 0.3% each year in men and women, and the five-year relative survival rate is 13%, which Strauss described as "dismal."

Oberstein, a GI specialist, noted that these types of cancers "often have very poor outcomes," although there have been some improvements in early detection and treatment over the last few decades.

"The biggest benefit we've seen in terms of mortality comes from earlier detection of GI cancers," he told Fox News Digital, adding that colon cancer has the best outcomes when detected early.

"But we really need to double down on trying to detect stomach cancer, liver cancer and especially pancreatic cancer earlier in order to make a big difference," Oberstein said.

Fox News Digital's Melissa Rudy contributed to this report.