Cancer in Iowa Report: What does the data show and how does Woodbury County stack up
SIOUX CITY (KTIV) - Every year, the Iowa Cancer Registry releases a report looking at the projected top 10 cancers in Iowa between men and women. The Cancer Report in Iowa looks at 5 years of data, with the latest report looking at cancer data from 2017 through 2021.
That data is broken down into many categories, including cancer type, age of diagnosis, and the county where the person lives.
What is the Cancer in Iowa Report
In the latest report, breast, prostate, and lung cancers were the leading types of cancer statewide. While the data shows more Iowans diagnosed with cancer, it also shows more are surviving as well.
“We’re the only state in the last three five-year reporting periods that’s going up. There is no other state that’s been going up in all three of those reporting periods, which is concerning,” said the Director of the Iowa Cancer Registry Dr. Mary Charlton. She says while the report only includes data up to 2021, they are constantly working to bring in newer data faster.
“The cancer registry right now, we have complete data through 2022,” explained Dr. Charlton. “So when I’m going around the 99 counties project, my data includes 2022.”
“Unfortunately, everything kind of lags a little bit, and so we don’t actually know what’s happening right now. All of the registries are really trying to leverage things like electronic pathology records and other ways of getting information faster, so we can start, even if we don’t have all the treatment for people and all the other information we collect on cancer patients, can we move towards a little bit more real-time incident reporting,“ said Dr. Charlton.
The Cancer in Iowa report includes data from newly diagnosed cancers among Iowans, not recurrences. This means if an Iowan is diagnosed with breast cancer, treated, and goes into remission, but then that cancer returns later, that cancer count would only be counted once.
“But if that person with breast cancer is cured and then ten years later develops Melanoma,” explained Dr. Charlton. “Then they’re in our registry again, that’s a new cancer for them.“
The 2025 Objective
The Cancer in Iowa report doesn’t just break down the latest cancer rates in the state. Each report also comes with an educational objective. In 2024, the educational topic was the link between certain cancers and alcohol consumption.
This year, the focus is on “cancer survivorship.”
An estimated 172,000 cancer survivors are living in Iowa. That’s roughly 5.4% of the population. With more Iowans surviving cancer each year, the report shows that more needs to be done to meet the unique needs and specialized support for Iowa cancer survivors.
“It’s difficult to provide the resources that cancer survivors need across our state, especially in some more rural areas,” explained Dr. Charlton. “The reimbursement for a lot of services that would benefit cancer survivors is not there. So it’s very challenging, even for the bigger hospitals to offer really good survivorship care.”
Each year, the goal is to choose a topic that is not only educational but raises awareness to a cancer-related issue that is impacting Iowans.
Woodbury County by the numbers
Iowa continues to have the second-highest rate of new cancers in the United States.
The Cancer in Iowa 2025 report estimates that 21,200 Iowans will be diagnosed with the disease this year, a 0.7% increase from 2024’s estimate.
The report not only looks at statewide numbers but also breaks them down by county.
“When I look at Woodbury County specifically, we see that it ranks 18th in the rate of new cancers and you’re ranked 16th in the rate of cancer deaths in the state,” said Dr. Chrlton.
Dr. Mary Charlton is also a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Iowa College of Public Health. She walked KTIV through the data collected for cancer rates in Woodbury County.
“We see that prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in Woodbury County, and you rank 32 out of 99 counties for the rate of prostate cancer, and that is significantly higher than the rest of the U.S.,” she said.
The data from the 2025 report runs from 2017 to 2021. Compared to the state as a whole, more Woodbury County residents are diagnosed with prostate cancer at stage 2. But as Dr. Charlton says, part of that is because more people are getting screened.
“What we consistently have seen since I’ve been on the scene is that prostate cancer is very high in Western and Northwest Iowa,” explained Dr. Charlton. “And that’s kind of a tricky one to interpret because prostate cancer is one of those cancers, like the more you look for it, the more you find it.”
Another cancer type with high numbers in Woodbury County is lung cancer, ranking 24th out of Iowa’s 99 counties and “significantly higher than the rest of the U.S.”
“You have a higher smoking rate. The US is down closer to 13%. Iowa is 15%. Woodbury County is at 17%, so that’s pretty high,” said Dr. Charlton.
While the rate is high in Woodbury County, data does show a slight decrease from previous years.
The cancer report also breaks down cancer rates by age, gender and race. Of the 1,871 new cancer patients in Iowa, 57% were diagnosed between the ages of 60 and 79.
When looking at the type of treatment Woodbury County residents received, 53% had a surgical procedure, 30% chemotherapy, and 22% radiation.
What is learned
While this is a brief outlook on the data released in the report, Dr. Charlton said the report helps officials see where changes could be made.
“We look at the five most common types of cancer. And then, we compare them to the rest of the state of Iowa and to the U.S.,” she said. “We try to see where people are off. And are there known prevention-type of measures that can be taken or screening-type measures that can at least improve outcomes among people diagnosed with these types of cancers?”
Getting regular health screenings can help not only prevent cancer but also catch it early. The latest report highlights the growing number of Iowans surviving with cancer and the growing needs of that community.
Part of the reason that more Iowans are surviving cancer is because more are catching it early through annual screenings. Charlton said that while catching cancers early may mean a rise in cancer rates, it also means a higher chance of survivability.
“So that’s something that a health system can do is be really pretty active in getting people in to get screened so they can find their cancer early,” she explained. “But it is really helpful in terms of people’s quality of life and how long they’re able to survive after their cancer and their likelihood of curing that cancer.“
To view the 2025 Cancer in Iowa Report or previous annual reports, visit the Iowa Cancer Registry online.
Cutting funds for cancer research
Cancer is an ever-changing disease, requiring constant research and treatment development, but the recent cuts to government agencies by the Trump Administration are impacting that work here in Iowa and nationwide.
According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, the National Institute of Health, which runs the National Cancer Institute, receives billions of dollars every year for cancer research.
That funding helps make long-term studies into cancer-causing agents continue. One of those studies is an agricultural health study looking at the use of pesticides. The National Cancer Institute enrolled over 50,000 Iowans who used pesticides in their job to study in the 1990s to monitor the effects pesticides might have on the human body.
“They collect very meticulous data about which pesticides they’ve used, what types of things they’re exposed to in their water, all the different things I think that people are concerned about,” explained Dr. Charlton. “nd then we provide our data so that they can follow that cohort and see who gets cancer and what types of risk factors they’re exposed to.”
Charlton says it’s critical that these studies continue to be funded because it takes decades to see meaningful results.
“It’s really important that that study goes on because it’s just now getting to the point where those pesticide applicators who are in their 30s and 40s back in the 1990s, when they were enrolled, are starting to get cancer now,” she said. “Cancer takes decades to develop, so they’re starting to have more and more data where they could do the types of studies that I think Iowans are really interested in.”
The Iowa Cancer Registry is largely funded by the National Cancer Institute. In February, the Trump Administration imposed a new policy capping indirect costs for research grants for the NIH, cutting billions in available funding for cancer research.
Lawsuits filed by 22 states led to a federal judge blocking that policy from taking hold.
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