Ellen Chang

Sc.D.

GRAIL, LLC

Principal Epidemiologist

NLST (Learn more about this study)

NLST-995

Dec 8, 2022

Non-lung cancer incidence in NLST

Absolute cancer incidence rates are routinely reported by population-based cancer registries, but registries lack information on patient risk factors such as smoking, family history of cancer, and comorbidities. Conversely, epidemiological and clinical trial cohorts, which collect detailed patient risk factor data, generally do not report absolute cancer incidence rates; instead, they tend to focus on relative risks of cancer associated with various risk factors. Absolute cancer incidence rates are helpful for understanding the burden of cancer in population subgroups and determining potentially appropriate eligible groups for enhanced cancer screening. In addition, information on the incidence of cancers other than the screened cancer (i.e., non-lung cancers in the NLST) is useful for characterizing the total burden of cancer in screened populations, and evaluating how screening for one cancer may indirectly lead to detection of other cancers. Therefore, we propose to calculate absolute and relative incidence rates of all major non-lung cancers by categories of lifestyle and environmental risk factors in the NLST population, and to compare them with rates in American Cancer Society observational cohorts (please see https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.34396 for reference).