More effort urged on cancer control

Screening for breast and colorectal cancer and smoking cessation efforts are paying off with declining death rates for most groups.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Sept. 22/29, 2003.

Washington -- The good news on the cancer front is that death rates for the four most common cancers -- lung, breast, prostate and colorectal -- declined steadily throughout the 1990s. But continuing this downward trajectory will require that effective screening and treatment efforts reach all segments of a population that is living longer after a cancer diagnosis.

These findings are part of the "Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2000." And, although the document is chock full of numbers, "its emphasis is on people," said Brenda K. Edwards, PhD, associate director of the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance Research Program and an author of the report.

An estimated 556,500 people will die this year from one of about a dozen cancers, Dr. Edwards noted at a Sept. 2 briefing on the report. The number of estimated deaths ranged from 157,000 for lung cancer to 57,000 for colorectal cancer, 40,000 for breast cancer, 30,000 for cancer of the pancreas and 29,000 for prostate cancer.

The report also revealed a widening gap in colorectal and breast cancer deaths between whites and blacks. By 2000, death rates for these cancers in whites were substantially lower than for blacks, indicating that black men and women may not be receiving the same beneficial screening and/or treatment.

This pattern signals a need to find new methods to effectively disseminate advances in prevention, screening and treatment to all segments of the population.