By F. Perry Wilson
Source Medscape
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Welcome to Impact Factor, your weekly dose of commentary on a new medical study. I’m Dr F. Perry Wilson of the Yale School of Medicine.
A lot of epidemiology starts with a simple question. But as you think about it, you realize just how complicated the question actually is. Here’s a simple question: Is cancer more common today than it was in the past?
Easy, right? Well, let’s take it apart. The truth is, there are more new cases of cancer in the United States now than there have ever been before. Last year, 2 million people in the country were diagnosed with cancer. There were about 1 million diagnosed in 1990. Of course, that’s misleading; the population of the United States is bigger now than it ever was before. So, we don’t really want a count; we want a rate per 100,000 individuals.