Tag Archive for 'lung cancer'

U.S. shows progress on cancer report

Published on June 26, 2011 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

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Around 1, 596, 670 Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Within that number, about 571, 950, which is more than 1,500 each day, will die. These figures come from the June 17 report from the American Cancer Society. They update cancer incidence and mortality statistics every year. Their Cancer Facts and Figures 2011 provides a more in depth explanation of where the United States rates when it comes to cancer.

Dropping since the 1990s, cancer death rates have proceeded to decline among males and females in almost all racial and ethnic groups since 1998, according to the report. The ACS believes that the falling rate in cancer mortality rates from 1990 to 2007 designate almost 900,000 lives that could have been lost due to cancer but were not.

Even though they have been increasing since the 1930s, lung cancer death rates have been on the decline for women. For men, the death rates began to fall about 10 years ago. This said, lung cancer will be the cause of almost 25 percent of all cancer deaths for women in 2011.

From 1997 to 2007, cancer death rates for men plunged by 22.2 percent for men and for women by 13.9 percent. Most of the lessening was the result of decreasing mortality rates for colorectal and breast cancer for women and lung, prostate and colorectal cancers for men.

Disturbingly, the report notes that the American Cancer Society reveals that cancer death rates for the least educated are more than twice the amount of that for the most educated. The report claims that if this difference was eradicated, 37 percent of the premature cancer deaths that happened in 2007 among those between 25 to 64 years old, could have been prevented. This number mirrors more than 60,000 lives.

Even though all this is good news, cancer is still the second-leading cause of death in the U.S. The ACS reports that cancer is responsible for almost one in every four deaths. Currently, only heart disease kills more.

Less women dying from lung cancer

Published on May 7, 2011 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

For the first time ever, the death rates for women dying from lung cancer are decreasing. Even though it is a minuscule amount, a little less than 1 percent a year, it still provides hope towards the battle against lung cancer.

Unfortunately lung cancer is still the nation’s, as well as the world’s, leading cancer killer. This said, this drop has been anticipated for a long time. A similar decrease began in U.S. men about ten years ago. Elizabeth Ward of the American Cancer Society, said “It looks like we’ve turned the corner.”

Thanks to the success against some of the main types of cancer – breast, prostate and colorectal, and lung cancer in men, death rates from cancer have been slowly dwindling for years. Preventing cancer is more beneficial than treating it, and the U.S. has reported small but significant declines in new cases as well.

The new report reveals that death rates have fallen on an average of 1.6 percent a year between 2003 and 2007, which is the latest data available. The researchers reported in the National Cancer Institute that rates of new diagnoses have diminished almost 1 percent a year.

Diagnosis and deaths are still on the increase for other types of cancer such as liver, kidney, melanoma and pancreatic cancer. Also, cancer is predominately a disease of the older population, and it is swiftly aging.

In general, men were heavier smokers long before women, which caused men’s lung cancer deaths to skyrocket first. Then in the early 1990s, death rates started to fall, and less young men fell into the habit. The new report showed that those rates were decreasing by 3 percent a year between 2005 and 2007. Researchers have been expecting the same thing to happen with women, so they began noting signs that death rates had started to slowly fall for a few years. Now that they have a straight five year trend, they are assured that the decrease is real, according to Brenda Edwards, a statistician from the National Cancer Institute.

Edwards mentioned that the cigarette industry targeted women in the late 1960s and ’70s. She called this “the Virginia Slims effect”. This escalated smoking for some young women around this time. She said that the death rate may temporarily be increased for these women as they get older.

Lung cancer is projected to kill more than 159,000 Americans this year. About 70,500 will be women.

Hormone therapy could increase the risk for lung cancer to be fatal

Published on June 8, 2009 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

There is more bad news about hormone therapy for menopause symptoms. A new study indicates that lung cancer is more prone to be fatal in women who are taking estrogen-progestin pills.

Women using hormones, who had developed lung cancer, were more than two times as likely to die from lung cancer as women who were not taking hormones, according to reports from Many 30.

These new discoveries suggest that smokers should stop taking hormones, and careful consideration should be taken for those who have not yet started taking hormones, according to Dr. Rowan Chlebowski of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. Leading the analysis, he presented results at a meeting of the oncology society in Florida.

This is the most recent finding form the Women’s Health Initiative, which is a federal study in which 16,608 women were given either Prempro or fake pills. In 2002, the study was ended because researchers noticed an increase in breast cancers in women taking Prempro, the estrogen-progestin pill that is made by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. They are still recording the impact on the women in the study.

Non-small-cell lung cancer, which is the most common type, was observed in the new analysis. No difference was found in the amount of lung cancers that developed in hormone users after 5 years of follow-up.

On the other hand, lung cancer proved to be fatal in 46 percent of hormone users who had already developed it, versus 27 percent of those who were given the fake pills.

Dr. Richard Schilsky, a cancer specialist at the University of Chicago and president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, said that “It’s another piece of evidence to suggest that hormone replacement therapy should be used with great caution.”

Smoking may increase risk for breast cancer

Published on April 28, 2009 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

It has long been a fact that smoking causes lung cancer and is a culprit in several other cancers as well, but, until recently, scientists have usually claimed that it did not have an effect on breast cancer. A Canadian panel of experts is now disputing the long-standing view.

On Thursday, April 23, the panel revealed the findings from new studies indicating that smoking increases the risk of breast cancer and cautioned that young women and girls were vulnerable to certain risks when exposed to smoke. Even exposure to secondhand smoke during their important period of development may raise their risk for breast cancer later in life.

In the report, heavy evidence was found that secondhand smoke played a key role in pre-menopausal breast cancer, but did not find enough proof that it increased the risk in post-menopausal breast cancer.

In the wake of these findings, most scientists say that there is not enough evidence to conclude that smoking plays a role in breast cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer said in a current report that there is scarce if any link between active smoking and breast cancer. In 2006, the surgeon general’s office announced that there was not enough evidence to claim that secondhand smoke causes breast cancer.

A message women have received in the past is that you must go and get a mammogram because there is nothing you can do to stop breast cancer. Dr. Anthony Miller, a member of the panel and associate director for research of the University of Toronto’s school of public health, says that is total nonsense. He said, “You can be more physically active. You can eat a good diet and avoid becoming overweight. Do not drink heavily – and do not smoke.” Miller said, in so many words, is the main thing for young women to realize is that if you smoke, you not only increase your risk for lung cancer but for breast cancer as well.