Getting cancer prevalence right: using state cancer registry data to estimate cancer survivors

Cancer incidence and mortality statistics provide limited insight regarding the cancer survivor population and its needs. Cancer prevalence statistics enumerate cancer survivors—those currently living with cancer. Commonly used limited-duration prevalence (LDP) methods yield biased estimates of the number of survivors. National estimates may not allow sufficient granularity to inform local survivorship programs. In this study, complete prevalence (CP) methods are applied to actual North Carolina Central Cancer Registry (NCCCR) data to generate better, more informative prevalence estimates than previous methods