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Cancer rates across the board are down, including rates of new cases and death from all cancers combined, according to the latest report from the National Cancer Institute.

Officials say a big reason for the drop is a decline in new cases and death rates in three of the most common cancers in men: lung, prostate, and colon cancer, and two of the three top cancers in women: breast and colon cancer.

The report says overall death rates from colon cancer could, in fact, fall by 50 percent in the next decade.

“I think progress has been made on several different initiatives,” said Dr. Benjamin Levy, an oncologist at Beth Israel Medical Center. “One is better screening. Population-based screening has helped out tremendously, especially with colorectal cancer. I also think that health behaviors are now being adopted that reduce some of these cancer risks: smoking, diet, exercise, and finally on my front, I think we are coming up with better-targeted therapies.”

While doctors and researchers find the overall decline encouraging, an increase in other cancers is still a big cause for concern.

Rates of kidney, liver, and esophageal cancer continue to climb for men, along with leukemia, myeloma and skin cancer. Women are also being diagnosed more with lung, thyroid, pancreatic, bladder and kidney cancers, along with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and skin cancer and leukemia.

One of those patients is Carol Springstun, 58, who was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. She says doctors were not looking for the cancer when it was caught.

“It was a cough that wasn't going away, so I actually thought it was allergies,” she said. “I went to an allergist who wanted a lung X-ray, and that's how they discovered it, two spots.”

Her oncologist, Dr. Benjamin Levy notes that Springstun is one of his more fortunate patients. He says cancers like Springstun’s may be on the rise because the best screening methods for those tumors still are not in place.

And at a time when there has been a lot of conflicting evidence over if and when to get screened, particularly for breast cancer, Levy says it's tough to ignore the impact screening methods already in place have had on reduced rates.

“Many people are aware now, the U.S. Preventative Task Force came out and said mammograms for breast cancer should not be done until age 50,” he said. “I stick by my guidelines from that National Cancer Network and the American Cancer Society that say mammograms should still be done at the age of 40 and I think if we look at those trends, those trends are indicative of those screening methods.”

With more advances in treatment and screening, doctors are hoping to see that downward trend overall continue to fall.