Nearly 2 million Americans - 1,958,310, to be exact - are expected to be diagnosed with cancer this year, and 609,820 people will die of the disease, the American Cancer Society says.

The projected number of deaths would represent a 33 percent drop in the cancer mortality rate since 1991, and 3.8 million deaths averted, according to the organization's annual report on cancer trends and statistics, published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

The reduction includes a 65 percent drop in the past decade in cervical cancer rates in women in their early 20s, which the report attributes to the introduction of the human papillomavirus vaccine.

Conversely, prostate cancer rates have been rising by 3 percent a year, following two decades of decline and led by the increased diagnosis of advanced disease, which makes successful treatment less likely.

Using data from cancer registries and the National Center for Health Statistics, the report attributes the overall decline in cancer deaths to more widespread screening, advances in treatments for some types of cancer and behavioral changes, such as less tobacco use. Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the United States, exceeded only by heart disease.

Anyone can develop cancer, but 88 percent of those in the United States diagnosed with cancer are 50 or older, and 57 percent are 65 or older, according to a consumer-oriented version of the report available on the American Cancer Society website. At least 42 percent of newly diagnosed cancers are "potentially avoidable" through behavioral changes, screenings, vaccination and infection treatment, the report says.

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