|
Lung cancer is No. 1 killer cancer
Lung cancer remains the number one killer among cancers. The Lung Cancer Alliance has given America a report card to America for its progress on tackling the disease. The result: If lung cancer were a student, it would be a dropout.
Lung cancer killed 161,000 lives people last year, three times more men than prostate cancer, twice as many women as breast cancer.
More people will die from lung cancer this year than breast, prostate, colon, leukemia, ovarian and cervical cancer—combined.
About 60 percent of people diagnosed with lung cancer never smoked. While that's puzzling to the medical community, this brings new suspicion on second—hand smoke, naturally occurring radon, asbestos, sensitivity to air pollution.
From 1996 to 2003, only 16 percent of lung cancer was diagnosed at an early, most treatable stage. That's to be expected, lung cancer doesn't have consistent symptoms until it's at stage 4, when it's nearly impossible to stop. Still, there's no means of early detection or screening for lung cancer.
By contrast, 61 percent of breast cancers, 39 percent of colon cancers and 91 percent of prostate cancers were diagnosed at early stage. These cancers have screening tests.
The Lung Cancer Alliance sees the big problem in these and more issues is the lack of funding for research. Funding supports research and successful research — breast, prostate and colon cancer for example — turns around the death rates of cancers by coming up with screening and therapies.
The lack of funding is due to the stigma that anyone with lung cancer did it to themselves. The numbers who that's simply not true.
The Alliance is hoping people will put pressure on their representatives to set aside money for research into lung cancer.
——— (c) 2008, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Visit the Post-Dispatch on the World Wide Web at http://www.stltoday.com/ Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
————— TO SUBSCRIBE TO NEWS2USE Items in the News2Use package are not included in your MCT News Service subscription. You can subscribe to the News2Use package or purchase the items a la carte on MCT Direct at www.mctdirect.com. To subscribe, please call Rick DeChantal at Tribune Media Services at (800) 245-6536 or rdechantal@tribune.com. Outside the United States, call Tribune Media Services International at +1-213-237-7987 or e-mail tmsi@tribune.com ————— PHOTO (from MCT Photo Service, 202-383-6099).
| Civil Dialogue: | show/hide -1 comment(s)- |
|
The site mtstandard.com provides this community forum for readers to exchange ideas and opinions on the news of the day. Passionate views, pointed criticism and critical thinking are welcome. Name-calling, crude language and personal abuse are not welcome. Moderators will monitor comments with an eye toward maintaining a high level of civility in this forum. If you don't see your comment, perhaps... more
|
|
|
TOP JOBS
|
The Montana Standard reserves the right to remove comments considered inappropriate for the community forum.