Are more people getting cancer today than in the past?
Although there is an apparent increase in the number of people who annually die of cancer, this is due to the fact that there are more old people in society today than in the past. The older a person gets, the bigger his or her risk is of developing cancer. On the other hand, the huge increase in lung cancer (a rare disease in 1900) can be ascribed to a worldwide increase in the number of men and women who smoke.
