Incidence refers to the number of new cases of a particular disease in a set period of time. Prevalence is the total number of cases at any given time. A number of people have asserted that we are experiencing soaring incidence rates for cancer, often people who are vax safety nuts. For whatever reason that people make these claims, they are not true and this article does a good job of presenting the facts. As the article says, many cancers have declining incidence rates, some have increasing ones, usually because of better and earlier screening. Increases in the rate of cancer cases is not the same as an increase in the number of cancer cases. What sounds like a big increase in the rate is a small number of actual cases.
And people ignore the obvious, like the fact that Americans are living significantly longer on average so there is more time to get a cancer, particularly since cancer is more likely in older people. The earlier detection of cancer through more screenings at younger ages has led to far better outcomes, particularly in cancers like breast and colon tumors. So don’t buy into scaremongering headlines, get the data and use common sense. (Cancer Article)
