Trends in Cancer Incidence, Survival and Mortality

Time trends in cancer risk have often been summarised by the observation that mortality from cancers associated with tobacco is increasing rapidly, while mortality from all other cancers is either stable or falling slightly, this slight decline being dominated by the decrease in mortality from stomach cancer. Until recently, and with some variation between the sexes, this simple summary of cancer mortality trends would have been broadly correct for a number of developed countries, and it remains useful in dismissing claims of an impending and unexplained epidemic of cancer, but it does not apply to all countries, and in some there have recently been striking changes in the trends in mortality from cancers…