Epidemiology & Public Health

Track 2: Epidemiology and Cancers

The study of the factors that influence cancer in order to deduce possible patterns and causes is known as cancer epidemiology. Cancer epidemiology is the study of using epidemiological approaches to determine the cause of cancer and to identify and create better treatments. This study's scope necessitates dealing with lead time and length time biases. Early diagnosis may artificially inflate cancer survival numbers without really improving the disease's natural history, according to the idea of lead time bias. The assumption that slower-growing, more indolent tumors are more likely to be detected by screening tests is known as length bias. However, improvements in diagnosing more cases of indolent cancer may not translate into better patient outcomes after the use of screening techniques.