News and Headlines

News and Headlines

Cancer Death = Rates Declining

The prognosis is good for ca= ncer patients according to a recent report compiled by the nation’s major cancer organizations. The study shows that death rates from cancer decrease= d by 2.1 percent per year between 2002 and 2004. That’s nearly double the = 1.1 percent per year decline in previous years.

The study Annual Report t= o the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2004, Featuring Cancer in American Ind= ians and Alaska Natives takes a comprehensive look at the top deadly cancers for both m= en and women and shows that significant progress has been made in the battle against this disease. Soon to be published in the journal Cancer, the report combines the efforts of The Centers for Disease Control and Preventi= on (CDC), the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR), the American Cancer Society (ACS), and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), whi= ch is part of the National Institutes of Health.

“There has been a partnership of institutions across the US to produce this annual rep= ort since 1998,” said Dr. Elizabeth Ward, director of surveillance resear= ch for the American Cancer Society and co-author of the report. “We star= ted doing this in order to collaboratively analyze the most recent trends and to help the public understand the findings.”

Among the most significant results, there was a decline in mortality rates in 12 of the 15 most common cancers in men and in 10 of the 15 most common cancers in women. The steepe= st decline was in colorectal cancer, with 4.9 percent fewer men and 4.5 percent fewer women succumbing to the disease.

“The decrease in death= s is attributed to a combination of reasons,” said Ward. “There are better detection methods than before, making it easier to catch the disease early on. There are also more treatments readily available to stop the prog= ress of certain cancers.” Screening rates for colorectal cancers are curre= ntly around 50 percent of the at-risk population, which is a vast improvement ov= er the previous ten years. However, Ward and her colleagues hope the report encourages more people to have regular screenings.

“We’d like to se= e 100 percent screenings, but that’s not very probable” said Dr. Davi= d Espey of the division of cancer prevention and contro= l at the CDC and co-author of the report. “We don’t really have anyt= hing concrete yet in terms of primary prevention for the development of colorect= al cancer, but we think it’s primarily linked to improved screenings. Wh= en a patient is screened and has a polyp removed, that may have removed a future cancerous tumor. Screenings can serve as both detection and prevention.R= 21;

Additional cancer mortality = rate declines were in lung and prostate cancer for men and in breast cancer for women. Surprisingly, there was little decrease in lung cancer deaths among women.

“The death rate for lu= ng cancer overall has always been much higher in men,” said Espey. “Incidents rates have plateaued, but death rates are only slightly decreasing in women. Decrease in men is 2 percent and in women 0.2 percent. This reflects the smoking trend from the 60’s and 70’s. Overall, women started smoking later than men and are on a different curve. Essentially, even though men are trending down, t= hey have a lot more lung cancer incidents than women.”

Espy hopes that doctors and researchers will take two messages away from the study. The first is that t= he medical community is getting a return on their investment. Through screenin= gs and research into new medications and treatments, the shift toward survival= is much better. The second message is for doctors to use this report to increa= se cancer screenings in their patients. The report may also serve as a warning= on the dangers of tobacco use and that even though death rates are decreasing, smoking has an enormous impact on overall health.

“Maybe this is a chanc= e to take lessons learned from our successes in cervical and breast cancer control,” noted Espy. “The media campaigns and early detection programs informed the public and showed them how important regular screenin= gs were. These had a huge impact on the number of people being checked for the disease. Now we have evidence that education on early detection saves lives.”