Progress against cancer: an epidemiologic assessment. The 1991 John C. Cassel Memorial Lecture.

In this the John C. Cassel Memorial Lecture delivered at the 24th Annual Meeting of the Society for Epidemiologic Research in Buffalo New York in June 1991 the author reviews progress in the treatment of cancer over the past 60 years. The focus is on trends over time in both morbidity and mortality by age and sex particularly among young adults and children in developed countries. The author concludes that "the picture provided by the trends in mortality is certainly encouraging as they have shown a decrease of about 20 percent in both sexes spread broadly across most of the principal categories of the disease which can be attributed to a combination of improved treatment of some cancers and a reduced incidence of others. Incidence in contrast has shown an increase of 2 percent in women and of 23 percent in men. Some of the increase may be due as in the case of children to more complete registration but this is certainly not the explanation for the major part of the substantial increase in men." (EXCERPT)