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Thyroid cancer

The thyroid cancer epidemic — overdiagnosis or a real increase?

The global thyroid cancer epidemic over the past few decades in high-income countries has largely been related to improved diagnosis of the disease. A new analysis of thyroid cancer incidence and mortality trends over the period 1974–2013 in the USA confirms not only the well-known rise in incidence but also a recent increase in mortality from the disease.

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Figure 1: Death rates from thyroid cancer.

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Acknowledgements

The authors' work is partly supported by the Italian Association for Research on Cancer (AIRC; IG No. 18440). The authors acknowledge G. Carioli for providing the original figure submitted with this article.

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Correspondence to Carlo La Vecchia.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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La Vecchia, C., Negri, E. The thyroid cancer epidemic — overdiagnosis or a real increase?. Nat Rev Endocrinol 13, 318–319 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrendo.2017.53

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