An overview of the cancer burden for primary care physicians.

Primary care physicians and other caregivers are uniquely positioned to communicate with patients about their real risks of developing or dying from cancer and actions that can reduce these risks. This article discusses the statistics used to measure the cancer burden in a manner intended to help primary caregivers communicate more effectively with patients about cancer. The basic terms used to measure incidence, mortality, and relative survival, and considerations that influence the interpretation of cancer trends are described; opportunities to accelerate progress in reducing cancer incidence and death rates are identified. Although integrating effective prevention measures into standard clinical care will require changes in health care policy and in clinical practice, the combination of these approaches is essential to prevent the massive anticipated increase in the number of cancer cases, due to growth and aging of the population.