HJBR May/Jun 2020

42 MAY / JUN 2020 I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE COLUMN ONCOLOGY In recent years, extraordinary progress has been made to understand, prevent, diagnose, and treat cancer. These improvements are made evident in a recent report from theAmerican Cancer Society stating that in the United States, the cancer death rate has dropped 2.2 percent from 2016 to 2017, the largest single-year drop ever recorded. Louisiana rates have dropped as well by 3.2 percent and 4.5 percent in 2015 and 2016, respectively. RAPID PACE OF CLINICAL ADVANCEMENTS IN MEDICAL ONCOLOGY