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Pam’s
Commentary
February 17th,
2006
www.pamkilleen.com
RE: Decline
in Cancers Deaths and Quality of Life in Cancer
Survivors (3 stories below)
As you
will see, I’m combining two different stories in this
commentary. On the one hand, we are lead to believe that
modern medicine has heroically caused a drop in cancer
deaths. WOW! That’s great news….I don’t believe it. But
it’s great news. Now, on the other hand, in the second
and third stories, we also learn that cancer survivors
have a poorer quality of life.
I don’t
know about you, but quality of life is very important to
me. If I’m alive and yet can’t get out of bed, work, or
enjoy family and friends, I would consider that a big
problem.
The
solution, of course, is to make healthy choices so that
we avoid cancer in the first place. However, for those
who have been labelled with cancer, they need to learn
that it’s not a death sentence and that they can get
well using a variety of approaches. Cancer patients also
need to know that when they recover, they can achieve a
high quality of life.
Oddly
enough, when some people do get labelled with cancer and
do choose standard procedures such as radiation,
chemotherapy or surgery, they also decide to make diet
and lifestyle changes at the same time. If that’s the
case, then what really caused them to recover from
cancer? The radiation, chemotherapy or surgery? Or,
maybe it was the diet and lifestyle changes. Modern
medicine will always pat themselves on the back.
When I
read stories like this (especially that there’s a
decline in cancer deaths), I can’t help but wonder how
the statistics are being twisted to favor those who
benefit. In this case, for example, I would wonder if
there’s been a decline in the certain segments of the
population. There are probably many factors that could
affect their numbers so that they can make themselves
look good.
Modern
medicine has a lot of money to put out what amounts to
be some great PR. The answers for disease are right in
front of us, but the media is obnoxious about putting
out information that distracts us from trusting the
truth. Stories like this (decline in cancer deaths) are
designed to keep the masses asleep!
Don’t get
me wrong – if I’m in an accident, I would go to a
hospital. I’m sure that their emergency care is
excellent. However, for chronic illness, be sure to seek
out many options. (all three stories are below)
To learn
more about how Jerry Brunetti overcame cancer
(hint – he drinks raw milk and eats grassfed beef) and,
still today, achieves a very high quality of life, read
the interview I did with him in the archives. His
story is truly inspirational!
Cancer
Deaths Decline for 1st Time Since 1930
·
The drop in U.S. is slight but marks a milestone, as
advances catch up with demographics.
By Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-sci-cancer9feb09,0,4908699.story
For the first time since the government began keeping
national death statistics in 1930, the number of cancer
deaths in the United States has fallen as improvements
in diagnosis, therapy and prevention have finally
overtaken increases caused by aging and population
growth.
The number of deaths declined by only a sliver — 369 out
of about 557,000 between 2002 and 2003, the latest years
for which data are available.
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Graphics
Arresting a trend
February 9, 2006
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But the American Cancer Society, which conducted the
analysis, believes the downward trend is solid, and it
is projecting a substantially larger decrease this year.
The results "mark a remarkable turn in our decades-long
fight to eliminate cancer as a major health threat,"
said American Cancer Society Chief Executive John R.
Seffrin. "For the first time, the advances we have made
in prevention, early detection and treatment are
outpacing even the population factors that … obscured
that success."
The number of cancer deaths in women increased by 409 in
2003, but that growth was offset by a decline of 778 in
men, according to data from the National Center for
Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Md.
"That may seem like a small number, but it represents an
important milestone," said Dr. Michael Thun, scientific
director of the American Cancer Society.
The cancer society projects that deaths in 2006 will
total about 565,000, down from an estimated 570,280 in
2005.
A continued decline could have substantial economic
benefits. In 2005, direct medical costs of cancer care
totaled $74 billion, while lost productivity and other
effects added an additional $136 billion, the National
Institutes of Health reported.
The decline is "not surprising, but it is very
gratifying," said Dr. Michael A. Friedman, president of
City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte. "It has
taken quite a long time for us to reach this point."
The disease causes 1 in every 4 deaths in the country,
making it second only to heart disease. But the rate of
cancer deaths — not the number of deaths — has been
declining steadily by about 1% per year since 1991 as
individual survival has improved.
When the government began keeping records in 1930,
cancer accounted for 114,186 deaths and the U.S.
population was 123 million compared with about 290
million today. .
A cancer diagnosis was nearly equivalent to a death
sentence, the only treatments being rudimentary surgery
and blasts of radiation, which was first used at the
turn of the 20th century.
The first chemotherapy drugs were developed from poisons
used in chemical warfare during World War II, but did
not see much use for a decade more. The first recorded
cure of a metastatic cancer with drugs occurred in 1956,
when methotrexate was used to treat choriocarcinoma, a
rare tumor of the uterus.
The first major step toward prevention was the surgeon
general's report on smoking in 1964, which delineated
the hazards of tobacco, but it took two decades for that
message to have what was considered a profound effect on
smoking rates.
By the 1970s, half of those diagnosed with cancer
survived for five years. For those diagnosed during the
last half of the 1990s, the rate had grown to 65%.
Today, the National Cancer Institute estimates that
there are 10.1 million living Americans who have had
cancer. Men have about a 50% risk of developing cancer
in their lifetimes, whereas women have a risk of about 1
in 3.
The biggest contributor to the decline in cancer deaths
is the reduction in tobacco use over the last 30 years,
Thun said. Tobacco use accounts for 30% of all cancer
deaths, including lung cancer and 14 other types. Lung
cancer is the most deadly in men and women and will
account for about 162,460 deaths this year.
The incidence of lung cancer in men has fallen by about
24% since 1985. Among women, who in general did not
begin smoking heavily until decades after men did, the
incidence has leveled off since 1998 after a long period
of growth.
Decreases in death rates of breast, prostate and
colorectal cancers are also important contributors to
the overall decline.
Breast cancer deaths have dropped about 2.3% per year
since 1990 to an estimated 40,970 deaths in women this
year and 460 in men. The declines are attributed, in
equal measure, to improvements in treatment and early
diagnosis, which allows tumors to be detected while they
are easier to cure.
The incidence of prostate cancer has been rising and
falling over the last decade as a result of changes in
testing, but prostate cancer deaths have been declining
steadily, to an estimated 20,360 this year. The death
rates have been falling in whites and blacks, but
African American men are still twice as likely to die
from the disease.
Colorectal cancer deaths have been declining slowly, to
an estimated 55,170 this year, as screening has
increased — although about 50% of those for whom
screening is recommended are not receiving it. Screening
allows the identification of benign polyps, which can be
removed before they turn cancerous.
Treatments for colorectal cancer have also been
improving, and the incidence is falling, "but we don't
know why for sure," Thun said.
Friedman, of the City of Hope, said: "In general, people
are eating more healthy food and going in for checkups
more often."
HEALTH & SCIENCE
Cancer survivors report poor quality of life
Another round of research will be necessary to
determine why and what can be done to help these
patients.
By
Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Sept.
27, 2004.
Washington -- Cancer survivors experience a
poorer quality of life than do people who have
never been diagnosed with cancer, according to a
new study. The finding was true even for those
who survived more than 10 years after their
diagnosis.
"I
was surprised," said lead author Robin Yabroff,
PhD, an epidemiologist at the National Cancer
Institute. "We have some follow-up studies in
the pipeline to try to understand it a little
bit better."
The
study was published in the Sept. 1 Journal of
the National Cancer Institute.
More and more people will likely be living with
cancer in the near future as a result of earlier
detection and more effective treatments. One
million people in the United States will be
diagnosed with cancer this year, and that number
is expected to double by 2050 as the population
increases and ages.
The
researchers studied data collected in the 2000
National Health Interview Survey, an annual
survey that asks respondents questions about
their lives and health. They analyzed responses
from more than 1,800 cancer survivors and nearly
5,500 control subjects matched for age, gender
and level of education.
They found that cancer survivors were more
likely to describe their health as poor or fair
than were those who had never been diagnosed
with cancer. Survivors were also more likely to
report being unable to work because of their
illness or to have lost more days of work due to
illness during the previous year. The finding
was true for all types of cancer and regardless
of how many years had passed since the cancer
was diagnosed.
The
breadth of the data analyzed meant that some of
the depth was sacrificed, said William F.
Lawrence, MD, senior fellow in outcomes research
at the Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality, who is also an author of the study. "So
we can say that in the population there is a
burden of illness in cancer survivors, but we
don't know why," said Dr. Lawrence. "I'm sure
the reasons will be different for different
people."
A
mixed review
Some people may have had a recurrence of their
cancer while the poor health of others may be
attributable to the residual effects of their
cancer treatment, said the researchers. For
example, they note that several studies have
found that men undergoing surgery for localized
prostate cancer may continue to experience
incontinence and impotence after their initial
treatment.
The
main message to physicians who care for cancer
patients is to know that this burden of illness
persists, said Dr. Lawrence. "Clinicians need to
ask their patients about how cancer impacts on
their life overall and explore with the
individual patient a way they can be helped."
But
Deborah Armstrong, MD, a medical oncologist at
Johns Hopkins' School of Medicine, said it
wasn't surprising that people who are diagnosed
with cancer have more problems with work and
finances than those never diagnosed with cancer.
"It
might have been fairer to compare these patients
with those who have had a history of heart
disease or diabetes." The researchers may then
have tried to determine whether people with a
history of cancer are more productive or have a
better overall outcome compared with those with
heart disease, for example, she said.
While it's always good to have the data, she
said, the findings may not be beneficial to
cancer patients. "I worry that people who have a
diagnosis of cancer will have more trouble
getting insurance or getting a job. I'm not sure
it's going to have a positive outcome."
Bonnie Teschendorf, PhD, director of Quality of
Life Science at the American Cancer Society,
agreed that the fact that cancer survivors face
greater burdens in their lives is not
surprising, but she praised the study. "This is
a very important study to begin to characterize
what happens to people after they have left
their treatment. It shows what happens in their
lives after that," she said. "Once people leave
medical care, it is more difficult to track them
and find out what has happened and how it has
impacted their lives."
The
value of this study also comes, in part, from
its national data, which are not easy to gather,
she said.
Interest in the quality of life of the 9.8
million cancer survivors in the nation has
increased over the past two or three years, she
noted. The cancer society stepped up its
attention to this population about two years ago
with a special project.
There is also an effort to develop clinics that
provide follow-up care to former cancer
patients, and the new findings will provide an
idea of who needs services and what those
services might be, Dr. Teschendorf said.
Back to top.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
More are surviving cancer
A
report on cancer survivors by the National
Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention found that:
-
79% of childhood cancer survivors will be
living five years after diagnosis and nearly
75% will be living 10 years following
diagnosis.
-
64% of adults whose cancer is diagnosed
today can expect to be living in five years.
-
61% of cancer survivors are 65 and older.
-
An estimated one of every six people older
than 65 is a cancer survivor.
-
Breast cancer survivors make up the largest
group of cancer survivors (22%) followed by
prostate cancer survivors (17%) and
colorectal cancer survivors (11%).
Back to top.
Weblink
National Cancer Institute on cancer survivorship
(dccps.nci.nih.gov/ocs)
American Cancer Society's Cancer Survivors
Network
(www.cancer.org/docroot/shr/content/shr_1_csn.asp?sitearea=ack)
Back to top.
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Cancer can ruin a life, even if you survive
Patients report poorer health, lower quality of life
Updated: 4:39 p.m. ET Aug. 31, 2004
WASHINGTON
- Cancer can really mess up a person’s life, even years
after he or she has beaten the disease, U.S. researchers
reported on Tuesday.
Cancer
survivors have poorer health, lose more days from work
and have a generally lower quality of life than people
who have never had cancer, the study in the Journal of
the National Cancer Institute found.
The U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates
that 9.8 million cancer patients and survivors are alive
now in the United States. About 64 percent of adults and
79 percent of children now survive cancer for at least
five years, the CDC says.
Better coordination of care needed
These patients have not been studied much, but a series
of reports have called for better coordination of care
for cancer survivors, especially children. They have
found that the harsh treatments often needed to beat
cancer, including surgery, chemotherapy and radiation,
can themselves have lasting effects on health.
Robin
Yabroff of the National Cancer Institute and colleagues
at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
studied a questionnaire of 1,800 cancer survivors and
nearly 5,500 people who never had cancer and matched for
age, sex, and level of education.
They found
that 31 percent of cancer survivors reported having fair
or poor health, compared to 18 percent of people who
never had cancer.
Only 13
percent of cancer survivors described their health as
“excellent,” compared to 21.9 percent of non-patients,
although a similar percentage described their health as
“good” -- 33 percent of cancer survivors and 29 percent
of non-patients.
“Survivors
were more likely to have spent 10 or more days in bed in
the past 12 months than control subjects (14 percent
versus 7.7 percent),” the researchers wrote.
“Cancer
survivors were also more likely than control subjects to
report limitations with arthritis or rheumatism, back or
neck problems, fractures or bone or joint injuries,
hypertension, or lung or breath problems than control
subjects,” they added.
But cancer
survivors were no more likely to have heart problems,
stroke, diabetes, depression, anxiety or other emotional
problems, the survey found.
The study
included a range of cancer patients, including 16
percent who had only been diagnosed in the past year, 19
percent within 6 to 10 years and 27 percent who had
survived 11 or more years.
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