Researchers never expected to win the war against cancer with a single decisive blow. The disease is really many diseases, after all, each with its own unique challenges. Instead, thanks to a growing number of small but important advances, medicine has been gaining ground.

The latest evidence comes in a report just published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Newly diagnosed cancers fell 0.8 percent every year from 1999 to 2005, the latest year for which statistics are available–the first time such a decline has been documented. Cancer deaths have steadily declined for the past 15 years. Between 2002 and 2005, they fell by 1.8 percent a year.

Part of the credit goes to better screening for diseases such as colorectal and prostate cancer, and to prevention efforts, including anti-smoking initiatives and campaigns designed to encourage Americans to eat healthier diets. It’s no concidence that lung cancer rates have seen the steepest decline in California, the first state to enact comprehensive bans on tobacco. Credit also goes to more effective treatments, which have turned cancers that once represented a death sentence into diseases that can be controlled and even cured.

Our family witnessed one success first hand. Five years ago, my brother was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), a cancer that strikes cells of the immune system. Standard chemotherapy didn’t make a dent in his disease. I still remember the way my brother looked then: gaunt, ashen, so weak he could barely climb a flight of stairs. And frightened.

Then he started on a drug that had been recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration, called rituxan. Rituxan was one of the first monoclonal antibodies to win approval. Bioengineered to target a specific molecule on the surface of lymphoma cells, it is, in effect, a guided missile that can zero in on a specific target, leaving healthy cells undisturbed.

The drug doesn’t work for everyone. But for my brother, it worked a miracle. Lumps of tumor cells that had massed in his lymph nodes melted away. His color and strength returned. He regained his youthful energy and optimism.

A little less than a year later, when the lymphoma cells began surging again, he received another round of rituxan, which is administered by IV. This time, the drug was even more effective at beating back the cancer.

Since then, my brother has been able to go for longer stretches between treatments. His current remission has lasted almost two years. Chances are he’ll need another course of therapy. But odds are it will work again. And if it doesn’t, there are newer monoclonal antibodies that could step in.

Advances in treating lymphoma are especially welcome because, unlike many cancers, new cases of lymphoma are on the rise. Once relatively uncommon, non-Hodgkin’s is now the fifth leading type of cancer in the U.S. The rise has slowed in recent years, but the incidence is still increasing by 1 to 2 percent annually.

No one knows exactly why. (For an intriguing look at one theory, check out PDQhealth’s interview with Yale University researcher Yong Zhu, PhD.) Melanoma, kidney cancer, and liver cancer are also increasing in incidence; and again, researchers aren’t sure why. But lung cancer among men, breast cancer, and colorectal cancer among both genders are declining.

On balance, the latest report from the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society offer reasons for optimism—and a renewed commitment to research and prevention efforts.

Tags: breast cancer, cancer incidence, cancer rates, lung cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, prostate cancer