(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Fewer people have died from cancer since 1990 in the United States.

A new report from the American Cancer Society (ACS) finds death rates from cancer have gone down by 18.4 percent in men and 10.5 percent in women since mortality rates began to decline in the early 1990s. This means more than half a million cancer deaths have been averted in the United States.

The report shows cancer death rates dropped from 2004 to 2005, but the actual number of deaths increased by 5,424 -- 559,312 in 2005 compared to 553,888 in 2004. ACS says in order for the number of cancer deaths to go down, the decline in the overall cancer mortality rate must be big enough to offset the increasing numbers due to the population growing and aging.

“The increase in the number of cancer deaths in 2005 after two years of historic declines should not obscure the fact that cancer death rates continue to drop, reflecting the enormous progress that has been made against cancer during the past 15 years,” John R. Seffrin, Ph.D., American Cancer Society chief executive officer, was quoted as saying. “While in 2005 the rate of decline was not enough to overtake other population factors, the fact remains that cancer mortality rates continue to drop, and they’re doing so at a rate fast enough that over a half million deaths from cancer were averted between 1990/1991 and 2004.”