01:40 09.01.2009 | All news from "Cancer"
Bright Spots of 2008
While times are tough, they are most certainly not all bad. Infact, the last few months of 2008 brought a rash of positivedevelopments in the fight against cancer. For one, The AnnualReport to the Nation,which came out just before Thanksgiving, showed that both cancer deathrates and cancer incidence rates have dropped for the first time onrecord. Another report indicates fewer Americans are smoking. Stillanother found that colorectal cancer rates are falling.
Here are 5 stories -- mostly good news, each and every one --you may have missed. Here's to hoping 2009 brings more of their kind.
Bothcancer death rates and cancer incidence ratesare dropping, according to The Annual Report to the Nation,a joint report by the American Cancer Society, the US Centers forDisease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Cancer Institute(NCI), and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries(NAACR). This is the first time in the 10-year history of the reportthat the cancer incidence rate has dropped.
According to the report, the decline in the cancer incidencerate was largely due to declines in the rates of the most commoncancers: lung, colorectal, and prostate cancer for men and breast andcolorectal cancer for women. The drop may be a sign that prevention andearly detection efforts are having an impact. However, experts alsocaution that it could mean fewer people are getting screened. Thedeclining cancer death rate, though, is definitely cause forcelebration. Read the full story .
TheCenters for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) foundthat fewer Americans are lighting up -- a sign that tobacco controlefforts like taxation and legislation may be working. According to theCDC, there were 43.4 million current smokers in the U.S. (19.8%) in2007 -- a one percent decline from the 20.8% in 2006.
Cigarette smoking accounts for at least 30% of all cancerdeaths, and it's a major cause of heart disease, emphysema, and stroke.Quitting smoking substantially reduces the risk of these diseases, andthe sooner people quit, the better it is for their health.Read the full story .
A newinitiative by the Social Security Administration (SSA),called Compassionate Allowances, announced this fall, will helpseriously ill people get their disability benefits sooner. The newprogram covers 50 conditions, including 25 cancers, that are so seriousthat they obviously meet the standards required for the Social SecurityAdministration to make a finding that the person is disabled.
The initiative will provide much-needed financial help -- muchmore quickly -- to many people with cancer who cannot work because oftheir illness, said Daniel E. Smith, president of the American CancerSociety Cancer Action NetworkSM (ACS CAN), thenon-profit, nonpartisan sister organization of the American CancerSociety. ACS and ACS CAN worked with Social Security to develop theprogram. Read the full story .
More people are getting screened for colorectal cancer,according to a data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC). While the increase is small and isn't seen across allpopulations, the report shows encouraging progress in the fight againsta cancer that's largely curable when caught early, and can even beprevented in some cases.
Another found that since 1998, colorectal cancer incidence rates have beendeclining rapidly, and survival rates have steadily improved. Betweenthe mid-1970s and 1996-2004, the 5-year survival rate increased from51% to 65%, according to the report. There's a caveat, though: thegraphs show a widening survival gap between whites and various minoritygroups. Read the full story .
The endof the year brought an unprecedented collaboration.Leaders from the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure,and the Lance Armstrong Foundation announced plans to team up with theInternational Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the NationalCancer Institute of Mexico to focus attention on the growinginternational cancer problem. The 3 US-based organizations also issueda 6-point call-to-action outlining steps the incoming US administrationcan take to ease the global cancer burden.
"Cancer is a growing pandemic – and an enemy that no singleorganization, or nation for that matter, can defeat alone. It will takecollaborative efforts such as this unprecedented gathering here todayand determined action from our nation's leaders if we are to make realand lasting progress in the worldwide fight against cancer," said JohnR. Seffrin, PhD, chief executive officer of the American CancerSociety.Read more .
ACS News Center stories are provided as a source of cancer-related news and are not intended to be used as .
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