The number of Americans who reached past 100 years old has increased in the last 15 years, according to a new U.S. government report.

It focused on the number of deaths of centenarians with nearly 26,000 who died in 2014, an increase of 40 percent in the last 15 years, the Associated Press reported.

About 80 percent of deaths in the age group each year are women, said Dr. Jiaquan Xu, the report's author from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The report said the number of Americans aged 100 and over increased by 43.6 percent to 72,197 in 2014 from 50,281 in 2000.

"As the number of centenarians increases, so does the number of deaths in this age group," according to the CDC after compiling data filed by 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia from 2000 to 2014.

The report said in 2014, 40 of the women were 111 or older when they died, compared to five men.

Centenarians account for 1 percent of the 2.6 million U.S. deaths in 2014.

Among centenarians, heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death, the same for Americans overall followed by Alzheimer's disease.

Cancer, No. 2 overall, is fourth for centenarians behind stroke as death rates for cancer decline as people hit their 80s.

"It's a case of if you live to 100, you've escaped cancer and some other causes of death that are more common in younger people," explained David Howard, an Emory University health economist who studies cancer trends.

The report said the death rate was highest for non-Hispanic white centenarians, followed by non-Hispanic black and Hispanic centenarians, throughout the 15-year period.

"The death rate for Hispanic centenarians increased 66 percent, from 17.4 in 2000 to 28.9 in 2006. The rate then decreased 23 percent, to 22.3 in 2014," the CDC said. "Death rates increased 13 percent for non-Hispanic white centenarians and 20 percent for non-Hispanic black centenarians from 2000 through 2008. The rates then decreased 13 percent for non-Hispanic white and 15 percent for non-Hispanic black centenarians by 2014."