Stomach Cancer Epidemiology

Epidemiologic transition is the shift of diseases from infectious diseases to chronic diseases. Factors that led to these transitions included the introduction of vaccines, increased sanitation, and overall improvement of living standards. All these were advocated through Public Health interventions. As a result of the transitions, life expectancy improved not only nationally but also worldwide. People are no longer dying from infectious diseases. Consequently, they live longer and end up suffering from or dying of a chronic disease. An increase in life expectancy therefore led to a shift in what populations worldwide suffered from. The immense increase in chronic diseases can therefore be attributed to factors such as Public Health interventions, lifestyle changes, tobacco use, alcohol use, and sedentary behaviors [1]. Some of these chronic illnesses include but are not restricted to heart disease, stroke, obesity, and cancer.

Many epidemiological researches have concluded that cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide, after cardiovascular diseases [2]. Stomach cancer in particular, was stated as not only the fourth commonly diagnosed cancer, but also the second leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide [3,4,5]. Furthermore, majority of the new stomach cancer cases occurred in developing countries [3,4,5]. In the United States (U.S), stomach cancer was the leading cause of cancer death up until the late 1930’s [6,7]. With major improvements since then in embarking stomach cancer, it currently does not stand out in the top ten leading cancer deaths [6,7]. The rationalization to the low ranking especially in the U.S has been attributed to the significant drop in mortality, and incidence of stomach cancer ove...

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...w.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/seropositive Accessed October 23rd

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