Posted on 10/07/2025 4:34:32 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Researchers suggest increase does not necessarily reflect a rise in clinically meaningful cancers
Key Takeaways
The increase in early-onset cancers is not necessarily due to a rise in clinically meaningful cancers, researchers argued, but may be due to increased diagnostic scrutiny and overdiagnosis.
Of the eight fastest-rising cancers, only two -- colorectal and endometrial cancer -- have shown a slight increase in early-onset mortality.
For the six other cancers, stable or declining mortality rates alongside rising diagnoses suggest that greater detection (rather than more disease) may account for the trend.
The recent rise in the incidence of early-onset cancers does not necessarily mean that the occurrence of clinically meaningful cancer in young adults is increasing, researchers said.
Instead, while some of the increase in early-onset cancers may be clinically meaningful, much of it is likely caused by "increased diagnostic scrutiny and overdiagnosis," argued H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and colleagues in JAMA Internal Medicine.
If clinically significant cancers are developing more frequently in young adults, those cancers should be leading to increased mortality at the population level, they suggested.
However, while the eight cancers with the fastest-rising incidence (>1% per year) in U.S. adults younger than 50 years -- thyroid, anus, kidney, small intestine, colorectum, endometrium, pancreas, and myeloma -- have doubled in incidence since 1992, "the aggregate mortality for these cancers has remained flat," they pointed out.
"Overall, the rise in early-onset cancer appears to be less an epidemic of disease and more an epidemic of diagnosis," Welch and colleagues wrote. "The lack of a substantial rise in deaths, despite rising incidence, underscores the need to provide context to the early-onset cancer narrative."
"While some of the increase in early-onset cancer is likely real, it is small and confined to a few cancer sites," they added. "The epidemic narrative not only exaggerates the problem, but it may also exacerbate it. While more testing is often seen as the solution to an epidemic, it can just as easily be the cause."
Of the eight cancers, only two -- colorectal and endometrial cancer -- have shown a slight increase in early-onset mortality.
Specifically, colorectal cancer mortality has increased approximately 0.5% per year since 2004, "suggesting some increase in the occurrence of clinically meaningful cancer," they noted. "However, its incidence has increased approximately 2% per year, raising the possibility that some of the rise in incidence may not involve clinically meaningful cancers."
As for endometrial cancer, incidence and mortality rates have both increased by about 2% per year, a trend they said was likely explained by increasing rates of obesity and decreasing rates of hysterectomy.
For the six other cancers, stable or declining mortality rates alongside rising diagnoses suggest that greater detection (rather than more disease) may account for the trend in the incidence of early-onset cancer.
For example, Welch and colleagues pointed out that diagnoses for thyroid cancer have "skyrocketed" despite stable mortality. Since 1992, there have been more than 200,000 excess thyroid cancer diagnoses among young adults, while the number of deaths has basically been unchanged.
They described this as "a classic signature of overdiagnosis."
Kidney cancer diagnoses have also surged despite falling mortality, which likely reflected incidental detection through increased use of abdominal imaging, the authors said.
Overdiagnosis in both cancers is well documented, they added.
Welch and colleagues posited that an alternative explanation for the rising incidence rates and stable mortality is the increasing effectiveness of treatments over the past several decades. However, "for these opposing forces to align so precisely, i.e., treatment advances perfectly counterbalancing the increase in disease (not too fast, or mortality would fall; not too slow, or mortality would rise), seems implausible," they argued.
A more "nuanced" approach to early detection is needed, they suggested. "The challenge is to refine diagnosis to only detect and treat the cancers that truly matter."
In an accompanying editor's note, Ilana B. Richman, MD, MHS, and Cary P. Gross, MD, both of the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, noted that the findings by Welch and colleagues have "important implications," including the fact that cancer overdiagnosis is not exclusively a function of age and competing mortality, and that cancer is heterogeneous, as is the risk of overdiagnosis.
These findings also underscore the importance of choosing meaningful indicators for cancer control and prevention efforts.
"The goal of cancer screening and treatment should not be merely to detect cancer, but rather to reduce its morbidity and, ultimately, mortality," they wrote. "Focusing on changes in mortality, therefore, is a more reliable way to identify policy priorities, to prioritize areas for future study, and to justify changes in practice."
Mike Bassett is a staff writer focusing on oncology and hematology. He is based in Massachusetts.
You didn’t answer the question. You just want to mindlessly grind out numbers. Carry on.
I've no idea what your alleged question is.
Please stop demonstrating your inability to understand PCR.
I was an analytical chemist in the pharmaceutical industry for fifteen years. I know about things like accuracy, precision, reproducibility, limits of detection, etc.
All you know how to do is grind out numbers the meaning of which you are clueless, so any level of detection is a deadly infectious disease.
Anything but acknowledging the clot shot.
My mom took every jab they give her.
Next thing ya know she’s dying of turbo liver cancer.
Was never sick before that.
And it came on suddenly.
She “felt a little weird” in March and was gone by August.
Gonna shut up now before I say something very un-Christian.
>> The increase [in cancer] may be due to increased diagnostic
notwithstanding the fact that nearly all trade journals are no longer independent, we know that extensive diagnoses have been in place for many decades in order to mitigate malpractice lawsuits — so the premise is BS
Anything but acknowledging the clot shot.
———————
Many know the mRNA jabs kill and disable, but the government will not acknowledge or even investigate the fact. The problem?
People are to embarrassed to admit they were fooled into taking the jabs. A shame, as there is treatment for ridding the body of the toxic spike proteins lurking in their bodies.
My mother also got the jab. Turbo triple negative breast cancer. She survived that but chemo/radiation gave her dementia.
I am so very sorry.
🙏🏻😢🙏🏻
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