WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cancer rates continue to fall in the United States, but the actual number of cancer patients will double by 2050 because the population is aging, the American Cancer Society said on Tuesday.

Since 1993, cancer death rates have declined steadily and the incidence rates--the numbers of people newly diagnosed with cancer--have been stable.

But cancer is a disease of older people for the most part, and as the population increases and grows older, more and more people will develop cancer, the society said in its Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer.

"The median age at diagnosis is 68," the society, a nonprofit group, which writes the report with the help of the US National Cancer Institute, said in a statement.

"As the US population grows and ages, the number of newly diagnosed cancer patients can be expected to rise from 1.3 million persons to 2.6 million," it added.

"This increase, especially in the number of older cancer patients, will spur demand for supportive, palliative and medical services. It will also create new challenges for healthcare providers since older patients are more likely to have other conditions or take medicines that might interact with cancer treatment," the group explained.

The report found that while cancer incidence stayed the same among men last year, it increased among women.

"For women, overall cancer incidence rates increased from 1987 to 1999, due to increased breast cancer rates among women aged 50 to 64, and increased lung cancer rates among women 65 to 74 years old," according to the report.

The report said the death rate from cancer in the United States fell an average of more than 1% per year from 1993 to 1999. One big exception was lung cancer death rates in women--which mirror the rise of the popularity of smoking among women.

Cancer experts say smoking causes 90% of lung cancer cases, and lung cancer is the world's leading cancer killer.

Death rates are down because better treatments mean people live longer with cancer, screening catches many cancers earlier, when they are more treatable, and fewer people are smoking, the report said.

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