Gastric cancer incidence

Method

Incident gastric (stomach) cancer diagnoses ascertained by cancer registry linkage, pathology report, or medical record review, compared across exposure categories — conventionally highest against lowest intake — and pooled as a risk ratio, odds ratio, or hazard ratio. Cardia and non-cardia subsites recorded on the edge where reported.

The method is part of the endpoint identity. Studies measuring the same quantity by a different method are held as separate endpoints.

Notes

Confused with gastric cancer MORTALITY, reported separately in the same reviews and often reaching a different conclusion. Incidence counts new diagnoses and is sensitive to surveillance intensity; mortality counts deaths and is sensitive to treatment and case fatality. An exposure can raise recorded incidence purely through detection while leaving mortality untouched, so the two are not substitutes for one another. Also distinct from the other site-specific incidence nodes: pooling sites into a single 'cancer risk' endpoint can cancel two real effects that point in opposite directions.