Over the past three decades, cancer deaths have fallen 34 percent, leading to 4.5million fewer deaths over that period, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS) report.

But while rates of disease have generally declined among men, they appear to be climbing among women, especially young women.

Women under 50 are nearly twice as likely to be diagnosed with cancer than men in the same age group, a 50 percent surge from 2002.

Meanwhile middle-aged women now have a slightly higher risk than their male counterparts.

Breast and thyroid cancers in women appear to be driving the increasing trend, but what's causing higher rates of those cancers is still being understood.

Experts say women's changing fertility patterns, having fewer babies and having them later in life, could be causing physiological changes that helps cancers grow.

Pregnancy and breastfeeding have been associated with a reduced risk of cancer later in life.

But other factors are likely at play. 

Recent research shows women under 50 drinking are drinking more alcohol than men.

One study, for example, found that the rate of women consuming five or more alcoholic beverages in a row rising twice as fast as men in the last decade. 

Meanwhile, increased exposure to environmental toxins like radon could offer possible explanations.

Rebecca Siegel, senior scientific director of surveillance research at the American Cancer Society and lead author of the report, said: 'Continued reductions in cancer mortality because of drops in smoking, better treatment, and earlier detection is certainly great news.

'However, this progress is tempered by rising incidence in young and middle-aged women, who are often the family caregivers, and a shifting cancer burden from men to women, harkening back to the early 1900s when cancer was more common in women.'