Incident Cancer in Cancer Survivors—When Cancer Lurks in the Background

Thanks to improvements in public health and more effective treatments for infectious diseases and cardiovascular disease, life expectancy in the United States has measurably improved. With increasing age comes an increase in cancer incidence. Over the past 4 decades improvements in cancer screening and treatment mean that about two-thirds of individuals in the United States diagnosed with cancer today will live at least 5 years.¹ Thus, the need for evidence-based measures to optimize medical care for cancer survivors has emerged.