Uterine cancer is rising, it is being missed too often, and it is hitting some women hardest. Here is the plain truth, and what you can do with it.
For most cancers, decades of research have pushed death rates down. Uterine cancer is the exception. It is one of the only cancers in the United States where deaths are climbing, and the trend is expected to continue for decades. Incidence has held roughly steady in white women but has kept rising, year after year, in women of every other racial and ethnic group.
The single biggest driver is the rise in obesity, which raises the body's estrogen levels and, with it, the risk to the uterine lining. That is also why doctors are now seeing this disease in younger women than ever before. A cancer once thought of as a concern only after menopause is no longer staying in that lane.
A disease that is getting more common, more aggressive, and younger is exactly the wrong disease to be detecting late.
Black women die of uterine cancer at nearly twice the rate of white women, and they are far more likely to be diagnosed at a late stage, when the disease is hardest to treat. The five-year survival gap, 63 percent for Black women against 84 percent for white women, is one of the largest racial gaps in all of cancer. Aggressive forms of the disease are rising fastest in Black women, too.
These gaps are not about biology alone. They are driven by later diagnosis, uneven access to expert care, and delays in getting the right treatment at the right time. Black women are also more likely to develop the more aggressive subtypes of the disease.4 That is precisely why equity is built into this foundation, not added as an afterthought. Earlier answers have to reach the women who are currently being failed the most.
Some women carry more risk than others, and knowing where you stand is the first step to acting earlier. The strongest driver is obesity: excess body fat raises estrogen that continually stimulates the uterine lining, and more than half of uterine cancers, around 57 percent, are attributable to it.5 Risk also rises with type 2 diabetes, never having given birth, an early first period or late menopause, taking estrogen without progesterone, the breast-cancer medication tamoxifen, and a family history of uterine, ovarian, or colorectal cancer, including Lynch syndrome.5
More than half of uterine cancers are linked to obesity. Most women have never been told.
In published surveys, roughly 58 percent of women were unaware of any connection between obesity and uterine cancer, and among women already diagnosed, only about 29 percent said a provider had ever discussed it with them.5 Closing that knowledge gap is exactly the work this foundation exists to do.
Here is the part most women do not realize: there is no routine screening test for uterine cancer. Nothing like the mammogram, nothing like the Pap smear. For a woman with no symptoms, the current system has essentially nothing to offer her in the way of early detection.
Instead, diagnosis usually begins only after a symptom appears, most often abnormal bleeding. About nine in ten uterine cancers are found because a woman bleeds and seeks help. That is the entire safety net: notice the bleeding, report it, get evaluated.
And even that net has holes. For years, the standard first step for postmenopausal bleeding was an ultrasound alone. But ultrasound by itself can miss cancer.
The experts just admitted the old approach was missing cancers.
In April 2026, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists updated its guidance to recommend both a transvaginal ultrasound and an endometrial biopsy for most women with postmenopausal bleeding, moving away from ultrasound alone. The reason was blunt: with incidence rising, ultrasound by itself may miss 5 to 12 percent of cancers. ACOG framed the change as a way to support "earlier and more comprehensive" detection.3
A system that waits for symptoms, and until this year was missing them even then, is not a screening plan. It is a gamble. We are working to change that.
You do not need to be a doctor to be a fierce advocate for your own health. You need to know your normal, notice when it changes, and refuse to be brushed off. Here is where to start.
Pay attention to your own patterns: your cycle, your flow, your body. You cannot notice a change if you were never tracking the baseline. Your body keeps a record. Learn to read it.
Take these seriously: any bleeding after menopause, bleeding or spotting between periods, periods that become much heavier or longer than your normal, and persistent pelvic pain or pressure. Any bleeding after menopause is never normal.
Trust your doctors, and trust yourself, and refuse to treat those as opposites. If an answer does not sit right, ask again. If you are dismissed, ask once more, or ask someone else.
Abnormal bleeding is the hallmark sign, present in roughly nine of ten cases.1 But what counts as "abnormal" looks different at different stages of life. Here is what to watch for.
A practical habit: keep a simple note on your phone. Track what is normal for you, and write down anything that changes. A clear record turns a vague worry into a specific conversation your doctor can act on.
You do not have to know the medicine. You just have to start the conversation. These are the sentences that move you from waiting to acting:
My mother did not have these words in time. I am giving them to you. Say them. Make them look.
Knowing the signs is how we close the gap, one conversation at a time. Share this with a woman you love, and help us reach the ones the system fails most.