Skyrocketing rates for minorities and elderly.

• Position: Cancer

Over the next 20 years, the number of new cancer cases diagnosed annually will increase from 1,600,000 in 2010 to 2,300,000 in 2030, with a dramatic spike in incidence predicted in the elderly and minority populations, according to research from The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston.

The study is the first to determine such specific long-term cancer incidence projections. It predicts an increase--from 1,000,000 in 2010 to 1,600,000 in 2030--in the number of adults age-65-or-older diagnosed with cancer. In nonwhite individuals over the same 20-year span, the incidence is expected to increase from 330,000 to 660,000.

The study underscores cancer's growing stress on the U.S. health care system, warns Ben Smith, adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology. "In 2030, 70% of all cancers will be diagnosed in the elderly and 28% in minorities, and the number of older adults diagnosed with cancer will be the same as the total number of Americans diagnosed with cancer in 2010.

"Also alarming is that a number of the types of cancers that are expected to increase--such as liver, stomach, and...