Cancer remains a major health obstacle across the globe, but now it looks like rare forms of cancer are becoming more common.
According to a study published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, 1 in 5 cancer diagnosed in America is considered rare cancer. Rare cancers are those with less than six cases per year per 100,000 Americans.
Carol E. DeSantis, MPH, the director of breast and gynecological cancer surveillance for the American Cancer Society, conducted the research using data from the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries, and the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program. She looked at more than 100 types of rare cancers.
Rare cancer rates were higher in Hispanics, Asians, and Pacific Islanders compared with non-Hispanic blacks and non-Hispanic whites. Also, 71 percent of cancers in children and adolescents were rare, while less than 20 percent of cancers in Americans 65 years of age and up were rare.
Does this mean that rare cancers are on the rise? Not quite, according to Dr. Maurie Markman, president of medicine and science at Cancer Treatment Centers of America.
Now that we can see cancers at the molecular level, we are able to better identify them – and that’s why you see rarer cancers being diagnosed.
The diagnosis of cancer is still a histological one – doctors can better pinpoint different types of cancer and subsets due to all the breakthroughs. This is why doctors can better predict how patients will respond to different treatments.
Cancers are increasingly being subdivided into groups of cancers based on molecular profiling. The more precise definition of cancers will result in more people being diagnosed with rare cancer.
Rare cancers are inherently more difficult to study as there are fewer patients and less research money to fund these studies. However, progress is being made to overcome some of these challenges through collaboration and novel study designs.
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 "New Technologies Can Spot Rare Cancers Earlier")
