ABSTRACT
In 1900, the top three causes of death in the United States were pneumonia/in›uenza, tuberculosis, and diarrhea/enteritis. Since the 1940s, however, most deaths in the United States have resulted from heart disease and cancer (NCHS 1900, 1948). Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the United States, after heart disease. Since 1950, the incidence of heart diseases has sharply decreased, but cancer incidence has not declined. It has been estimated that in the year 2011, about 1,596,670 new cancer cases will be diagnosed and about 571,950 Americans are expected to die of cancer, or more than 1500 people a day. In the United States, cancer accounts for nearly one of every four deaths. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), by the year 2030, almost 21.4 million new cases of this disease will be diagnosed annually and >13.2 million people will die of cancer each year, almost double the number who died of the disease in 2008. Therefore, it is necessary to better understand the prognosis, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer.
