Your column about microwave ovens moves me to ask: Is cancer increasing because we’ve wrecked the environment? For years we’ve heard about the chemicals and emissions we carelessly spew with dire implications for our health. Meanwhile, cancer seems to be on the rise: I’ve heard breast cancer is up sharply, and melanoma too. But I’ve also heard cancer is increasing because we now live long enough to get it, thanks to modern medicine’s success against illnesses that used to kill people at an earlier age. What’s the story? Is cancer really more common, and if so, why? –Nick Stalnos, Kankakee, Illinois
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
For a while we thought some key cancer rates were flat or declining, but on further study it turns out they’re going (oops) up. This bombshell dropped in 2002 with the publication of a paper innocuously titled “Impact of Reporting Delay and Reporting Error on Cancer Incidence Rates and Trends.” The gist: A significant fraction of cases (3 to 12 percent, depending on cancer type) don’t get reported promptly to the leading U.S. cancer data registry–in fact, it can take anywhere from 4 to 17 years following initial diagnosis before most (99-plus percent) cancers are counted. The missing cases can make early trend reports misleadingly rosy. Melanoma incidence in white males, for example, was once thought to be easing; now analysts think it’s rising 4 percent per year.
For example, Asian natives have a low incidence of prostate cancer, but for U.S.-born sons of Asian immigrants, who presumably have adopted Western habits, the rate doubles.
