# Proportion and number of cancer cases and deaths attributable to potentially modifiable risk factors in the United States

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-islami-ca-cancer-j-clin/  
OnCo record `paper-islami-ca-cancer-j-clin` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Paper cited by one bottleneck page and 27 idea pages, indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 29160902 and published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians; the citing pages link this DOI, which is how the record was matched.

## Summary

Contemporary information on the fraction of cancers that potentially could be prevented is useful for priority setting in cancer prevention and control. Herein, the authors estimate the proportion and number of invasive cancer cases and deaths, overall (excluding nonmelanoma skin cancers) and for 26 cancer types, in adults aged 30 years and older in the United States in 2014, that were attributable to major, potentially modifiable exposures (cigarette smoking; secondhand smoke; excess body weight; alcohol intake; consumption of red and processed meat; low consumption of fruits/vegetables, dietary fiber, and dietary calcium; physical inactivity; ultraviolet radiation; and 6 cancer-associated infections). The numbers of cancer cases were obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Cancer Institute; the numbers of deaths were obtained from the CDC; risk factor prevalence estimates were obtained from nationally representative surveys; and associated relative risks of cancer were obtained from published, large-scale pooled analyses or meta-analyses. In the United States in 2014, an estimated 42.0% of all incident cancers (659,640 of 1570,975 cancers, excluding nonmelanoma skin cancers) and 45.1% of cancer deaths (265,150 of 587,521 deaths) were attributable to evaluated risk factors. Cigarette smoking accounted for the highest proportion of cancer cases (19.0%; 298,970 cases) and deaths (28.8%; 169,180 deaths), followed by excess body weight (7.8% and 6.5%, respectively) and alcohol intake (5.6% and 4.0%, respectively). Lung cancer had the highest number of cancers (184,970 cases) and deaths (132,960 deaths) attributable to evaluated risk factors, followed by colorectal cancer (76,910 cases and 28,290 deaths). These results, however, may underestimate the overall proportion of cancers attributable to modifiable factors, because the impact of all established risk factors could not be quantified, and many likely modifiable risk factors are not yet firmly established as causal. Nevertheless, these findings underscore the vast potential for reducing cancer morbidity and mortality through broad and equitable implementation of known preventive measures. CA Cancer J Clin 2018;68:31-54. © 2017 American Cancer Society.

Indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 29160902 (DOI 10.3322/caac.21440). Matched by DOI alone: one bottleneck page and 27 idea pages cite this DOI among their external links (the pages are listed under Related), and this page was written so that the citation resolves inside OnCo. No figure has been checked by an editor.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-09-22
- Tags: europepmc-ingest
- Journal: CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians
- Year: 2018
- DOI: 10.3322/caac.21440
- Authors: Islami F, Goding Sauer A, Miller KD, et al.
- What it means: One bottleneck page and 27 idea pages on OnCo cite this paper by its DOI; this record gives the citation a page of its own so a reader can follow it without leaving OnCo. Read the abstract above alongside the citing pages listed under Related; the record was created automatically from the Europe PMC entry and its figures have not been checked by hand.
- Caveats: Matched to the citing OnCo records by DOI alone; the summary reproduces the Europe PMC abstract and no figure has been verified against the full paper.

## Sources

- CA Cancer J Clin 2018: https://doi.org/10.3322/caac.21440
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29160902/
- Europe PMC: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/29160902

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- journals: [CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians](https://onco.cc/journals/ca-cancer-journal/)

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