Rising Incidence of Cancer of the Small Intestine: Overdiagnosis and Better Diagnosis of Low-lethality Disease

See editorial on page 1593. Why Is Cancer of the Small Intestine Increasing?GastroenterologyVol. 162Issue 6PreviewIn this issue of Gastroenterology, Yao and colleagues1 examined small intestinal cancer occurrence with 40 years of population-based cancer registry data. Previous studies have noted an increase in the incidence of small intestinal cancer,2,3 a rare cancer that will be diagnosed in approximately 11,790 people in the United States in 2022.4 What makes Yao and colleagues’ study innovative is that the authors examined both incidence and mortality rates and compared them. They did so to provide clues on whether the increasing incidence of small intestinal tumors represents a rising risk of disease, sometimes referred to as a “true increase,” or overdiagnosis. Full-Text PDF