Add to that list heart disease. I'm sure most people know someone that could have died from heart problems prior to cancer becoming the cause of death much later in life. Also medical advances that prevent complications and in some cases death from diabetes.

well, as general categories, cancer, heart and diabetes are the main non-accident reasons people die, for example in my country (US), and it's similar in most other countries. I see that trend as continuing (as a consequence of the nature of health care, and lifestyle).

The actual details underlying the health trajectories of individuals (and then viewed in aggregate) are interesting, and the way we record cause of death, study deaths, (and the studies are then reported on) don't really capture the finer details in most cases.