Iowa maintains fastest-growing cancer rate as survivor numbers grow

IOWA CITY — With Iowa maintaining the second-highest and fastest-growing rate of new cancers nationally, according to a 2025 Cancer in Iowa report released Tuesday, treatment advancements have its cancer survivor count rising — reaching 171,535 this year from 168,610 last year and 148,465 five years ago.

The higher survival rate, however, also brings greater costs — for advanced research of cures and causes; for improved protocols for new cases; and for additional resources for survivors — compelling scientists, physicians and patients to advocate for more across-the-board support and collaboration.

“We're struggling to care for the people with active cancer, so how do we address the needs of the 172,000 survivors — given that some are rural, some are urban, some have different types of cancer and have different needs,” University of Iowa Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center Director Mark Burkard said Tuesday during a news conference on the latest Cancer in Iowa report.

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“We have to prioritize — what is the most important opportunity? What are the ways we can engage local providers, pharmacists and others to collaborate on delivering that care? This is a challenge we're looking to reinvigorate here at the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center through research.”

Given much of the university’s cancer-related research is funded through the National Institutes of Health and other federal avenues, Burkard acknowledged the unknown implications of potential funding cuts to federal grants and programs.

“There's a lot of cancer research ongoing … and all of research is sort of under question now of how we're going to fund that going forward,” he said. “If the cancer funding is cut substantially, as has been proposed, then how are we going to do the research? How are we going to provide the resources?”

The NIH earlier this month announced plans to cap indirect cost coverage for research grants at 15 percent — which, if implemented, could pull as much as $40 million from the campus, UI President Barbara Wilson told lawmakers this week.

Although a temporary restraining order blocking implementation of that cap was extended, UI researchers remain wary of their funding future.

“A lot of institutions around the country … are rescinding offers to graduate students, who are the ones who conduct this research, because of this uncertainty,” Burkard said. “So this threatens us now in moving forward with the planned research, but it also threatens our ability to train that next generation of researchers.”

Noting indirect costs cover things like heat, lighting, equipment, space, oversight staff and cleaners, Burkard said, “I'm very concerned about how this is going to play out.”

“Right now it's very uncertain,” he said. “And so it's a matter of how much risk we're going to take in investing the limited resources we're more certain about and how much we can raise in other ways to fill in the gap.”

MercyOne Cancer Center Medical Director Richard Deming on Tuesday said he’s already seeing cuts and layoffs.

“We have over 60 clinical trials that are open at our cancer center for enrolling patients,” he said. “And just two weeks ago, one of them was closed. It happened to be a clinical trial that was looking at the special needs of the LGBTQ community.”

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As vice president of the Iowa Cancer Consortium — funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and responsible for developing Iowa’s cancer plan — Deming two weeks ago saw one of its employees receive a pink slip “because she was still under the probationary period and her funding was coming from a federal government program.”

“So that's happened already,” he said. “We're afraid about what might be happening, but it's already happening.”

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‘Part of the cancer journey’

While funding is imperative in finding out why Iowa rates are high, how to stop the rise and what treatment protocols might continue to increase and improve outcomes, Iowa also needs more survivor supports, officials said Tuesday.

“These include screening for cancer recurrence and new cancers, addressing late effects and delayed symptoms of cancer treatment and improving quality of life for cancer survivors through nutrition, physical activity/movement, tobacco use cessation, and other mental health and social support services,” according to the new cancer report.

Produced by the Iowa Cancer Registry, the annual cancer report collects data on all Iowa residents diagnosed with cancer — estimating for 2025 another 21,200 new invasive cancers statewide, up from 21,000 in 2024 and from 16,900 in 2015. It again found the state ranks only behind Kentucky in the rate of new cancers.

Although Iowa’s cancer-related death rate is declining, the actual number of estimated cancer deaths this year is expected to reach 6,300 — up from 6,100 last year — with lung cancer accounting for 23 percent of fatalities, followed by colon and rectum cancer at 9 percent and pancreas cancer at 8 percent.

The largest percent of survivors had breast cancer — at 22 percent — followed by prostate at 19 percent.

“Two out of three Iowa cancer survivors — 67 percent — were diagnosed within the last five years,” Deming said. “So what you're seeing is that we're having a high incidence of cancer, but we're having much, much better treatment. Patients are surviving much longer. Hence the increase in cancer survivors.”

But while Iowa’s cancer-cure rate has drastically improved, he said, cancer survivors “still face far worse physical and mental health-related, quality-of-life outcomes, and a greater risk of a second cancer than adults who have never had cancer.”

“Once a patient's been determined to be cancer-free, they often receive less personal attention from their cancer providers,” Deming said. “That's unfortunate because many cancer survivors experience ongoing, physical, emotional, psycho-social, financial, spiritual, philosophical issues related to their cancer diagnosis and their cancer treatment.”

Survivorship care, he said, is an important part of the cancer journey.

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‘Rein in the stress’

Katie McKenzie, 58, of Des Moines, can attest to that — as she continues to battle the incurable multiple myeloma she was diagnosed with in August 2019. Through a stem cell transplant in 2020, a pandemic with a weakened immune system and one relapse, McKenzie has endured and found stability on her current treatment plan thanks, in part, to the survivor supports bolstering her medical care.

“I have participated in many activities and programs over the last five years,” she said. “I've got group exercise, ballroom dancing, urban pole walking, Reiki and sound healing, indoor rowing, touch therapy, online and in- person cancer groups, the bike club, the cooking classes.”

McKenzie has benefited from financial counseling and taken two “transformational journeys” to Utah and then Maine and New Hampshire, hiking on the Appalachian Trail.

“It is just a constant reminder that despite our situation, we can continue to do hard things,” she said, praising the programs and resources for helping to “rein in the stress and fear of relapse and liberate me from cancer anxiety.”

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com