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Prevalence reflects both incidence and survival, so it grows as treatment improves, and is the measure for health-system planning and survivorship needs; there are now over 18 million cancer survivors in the United States. Lifetime risk (about one in two in high-income countries) is a cumulative incidence, and stage-specific incidence is what screening programmes aim to shift.","asOf":"2026-09-09","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incidence_(epidemiology)","links":[{"label":"Wikipedia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incidence_(epidemiology)"}],"tags":[],"related":["mortality","risk-factor","screening","stage-shift","cancer-registries-surveillance","prognosis"],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"category":"Clinic basics"},"route":"/terms/incidence-vs-prevalence/","neighbours":{"term":[{"id":"mortality","kind":"term","name":"Mortality","route":"/terms/mortality/"},{"id":"prognosis","kind":"term","name":"Prognosis","route":"/terms/prognosis/"},{"id":"risk-factor","kind":"term","name":"Risk 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