Annual Report to the Nation on the status of cancer, 1973–1999, featuring implications of age and aging on U.S. cancer burden

The American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR), the National Institute on Aging (NIA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, collaborated to provide an annual update on cancer occurrence and trends in the United States. This year's report contained a special feature focusing on implications of age and aging on the U.S. cancer burden.

For 1995 through 1999, age-specific rates and age-adjusted rates were calculated for the major cancers using incidence data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program, the National Program of Cancer Registries, and the NAACCR, and mortality data from NCHS. Joinpoint analysis, a model of joined line segments, was used to examine 1973-1999 trends in incidence and death rates by age for the four most common cancers. Deaths were classified using the eighth, ninth, and tenth revisions of the International Classification of Diseases. Age-adjusted incidence and death rates were standardized to the year 2000 population, which places more emphasis on older persons, in whom cancer rates are higher.