The rise in pancreatic cancer diagnoses can be attributed to previously undetected disease and not a rise in cancer occurrence, according to a study published Nov. 19 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Researchers from Boston-based Brigham and Woman's Hospital and Austin, Texas-based Dell Medical School analyzed U.S. Cancer Statistics and National Vital Statistics System data of adults aged 15-39 from between 2001 and 2019 for the study.
Here are five notes from their findings:
- Over the study period, pancreatic cancer incidence increased from 3.3 to 6.9 per million for women and from 3.9 to 6.2 per million for men.
- Despite the increase of incidence, pancreatic cancer mortality remained stable over the study period at 1.5 deaths per million for women and 2.5 deaths per million for men.
- Most of the increase in incidence was attributable to early-stage diagnosis and smaller pancreatic tumors.
- The increase was also attributable to less common endocrine and solid pseudopapillary cancers as opposed to adenocarcinoma, the most common type of pancreatic cancer.
- "If cancer occurrence is truly increasing, incidence and mortality would be expected to increase concurrently, as would early- and late-stage diagnoses," the study authors wrote. "Increasing cancer incidence may not reflect increased true cancer occurrence but instead increased diagnostic scrutiny."
Read the full study here.