Are cancer rates in the Greater Bay Area going up?
No! Overall cancer incidence and mortality rates have continued to decline in the Greater Bay Area, in large part due to declines in tobacco-related cancers in males and increased use of cancer screening tests in females. Incidence rates for invasive breast cancer declined sharply in most racial/ethnic groups for the years 2003 and 2004. Work is ongoing to see if these declines are temporary and if they relate to the stoppage of hormone replacement therapy by many women after the July 2002 announcement by the Women’s Health Initiative that estrogen/progestin hormone therapy increases the risk of developing breast cancer and heart disease. However, even if the rates of cancer change very little, the total numbers of people who develop cancer will increase as the population gets older. This demographic change, combined with the fact that more people are surviving from cancer and that people are discussing cancer more readily, may have contributed to the widespread impression that the ris
