ARTICLES Recent Cancer Trends in the United States

Background: Cancer incidence rates have been reported to be increasing in the United States, although trends vary ac-cording to form of cancer. Purpose: We identify the cancers accounting for the rising incidence, quantify the changes that have occurred from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, and contrast incidence and mortality trends to provide clues to the determinants of the temporal patterns. Methods: Sex-, race-, and age-specific and age-adjusted incidence rates for the 5-year periods 1987-1991 versus 1975-1979 were calcu-lated for 28 cancers among men and 30 cancers among women using data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program of cancer registration cover-ing about 10 % of the U.S. population. Similar rates were computed using national mortality data. Cancers were ranked according to the change in incidence rates over th