Re: Are cancer rates increasing in US?

[John Goldsmith <gjohn@bgumail.bgu.ac.il>]

All of the same problems affect cancer mortality trends, and in addition
there are problems of multiple causes of death and of competing risks of
mortality, and the usual "confounders", such as age, sex, smoking,
income, urbanization, etc.
 Interpreting trend data for cancer is a job for epidemiologists.
 From which disciplines does ACSH draw its wisdom ?
                   John Goldsmith, Prof. of Epidemiology

On Tue, 23 Sep 1997, Bernard L Cohen wrote:

> 
> The position of ACSH on incidence rates vs mortality rates is as follows:
> 
> Reported increases in incidence rates are difficult to interpret because
> they can reflect any combination of the following:
> 
> 1. changes in diagnostic criteria
> 2. more disease surveillance
> 3. better reporting of cases
> 4. increases in screening for disease
> 5. increased utilization of medical services
> 6. true increases in disease incidence
> 
> There are problems in interpreting mortality data as well, but I don't
> think they are as big as the problems in interpreting incidence data.
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>