Cancer Deaths

Rural Somerset County is full of folks like Joe Reading, who used to dip his bare hands in DDT, still uses other chemicals on his farm and bathes his dinner greens in bacon grease. And Lewis W. Jones, a medical clinic director who smoked two packs of cigarettes a day until recently. And Weltonia Engram, who avoided getting Pap smears because she was afraid she might learn she had cancer.Smoking, diets loaded with fat and salt, exposure to cancer-causing chemicals and poor access to health care may be clues to why one in 321 Somerset residents dies of cancer every year.

State health officials released an ambitious plan Tuesday to reduce cancer deaths, using the latest strategies to prevent, detect and treat the disease — and save the lives of an additional 1,200 Marylanders a year. "Our goal in Maryland is to have to lowest incidence of cancer of any state," said Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, secretary of the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, in announcing the Maryland Comprehensive Cancer Control Plan. "This is our road map. " The plan, which includes the reduction of racial disparities and an increase in screening, is designed to maintain Maryland's progress in battling cancer.

State health officials released an ambitious plan Tuesday to reduce cancer deaths, using the latest strategies to prevent, detect and treat the disease — and save the lives of an additional 1,200 Marylanders a year. "Our goal in Maryland is to have to lowest incidence of cancer of any state," said Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, secretary of the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, in announcing the Maryland Comprehensive Cancer Control Plan. "This is our road map. " The plan, which includes the reduction of racial disparities and an increase in screening, is designed to maintain Maryland's progress in battling cancer.

CT scans can reduce deaths by 20 percent in older, heavy smokers by detecting tumors earlier, according to results released Thursday from an eight-year-long national study. The study, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and launched in 2002, aimed to see if the tests, which are more sensitive than X-rays, would affect the outcomes for those with lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the country. The disease was estimated to have killed 159,390 people in 2009, according to the institute — more people than killed by breast, prostate, colon and pancreatic cancer combined.

In an attempt to find causes for the high rate of cancer deaths among Anne Arundel County residents, the County Council last night approved a resolution creating a task force to study the problem.The task force, an idea conceived by Councilwoman Diane Evans and the Greater Severna Park Council, will bring together 15 people who either live or work in the county to gather and study data on cancer in Anne Arundel. They will work with Dr. Katherine Farrell, deputy county health officer, who is a specialist in environmental health.

For a long time, it was assumed that race was the primary factor predisposing certain groups of people to developing cancer. Health experts are now finding that race alone does not predispose one to cancer, but that socioeconomic status contributes to high rates of cancer and cancer-related deaths.The inability to access health care systems, certain lifestyles and dietary habits, and attitudes toward cancer are believed to be the primary reasons why blacks and other minorities more often become victims of the disease.

Maryland has retained its distinction as the state with the second-highest cancer death rate in the nation, trailing neighboring Delaware by a slim margin.The mid-Atlantic region's hold on cancer death is particularly striking when Washington is added to the picture. There, 230 out of every 100,000 inhabitants die of cancer each year, a rate exceeding that of any state.Maryland's other neighbors -- Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia -- also have cancer death rates among the top 10.Statistics comparing cancer deaths rates across the United States appear in Cancer Facts & Figures-1994, released yesterday by the National Cancer Society.

Maryland has dropped from second to third place in the American Cancer Society's annual ranking of cancer death rates in the 50 states, a change that owes more to Louisiana's worsening toll than to major improvements here.The cancer mortality rate dropped by one death per 100,000 people -- a difference that is not considered statistically significant. In the meantime, Louisiana's rate grew by a slightly larger degree, giving that state the dubious distinction of ranking second to Delaware.

The sharp decline in deaths from cardiovascular disease in the United States during the past two decades has been accompanied by an unexpected increase in the overall incidence of cancer and cancer deaths among people over 55, researchers say.White men born during the baby boom of 1948-57 have non-smoking-related cancer rates three times as high as their grandfathers, but the rate of cardiovascular disease has fallen by 43 percent, a government research team...

Health officials who have been poring over the state's cancer statistics for the past few months said yesterday they believed that tobacco and alcohol use were the major reasons why Maryland led the nation in cancer death rates.At least 42 percent of Maryland's cancer deaths, including lung, pancreas, esophagus, bladder, pharynx, liver and larynx, are linked to either tobacco use, alcohol use or both, Dr. John Southard of the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said yesterday. And the Maryland death rate for all of these cancers is higher than the U.S. average, he said.

After Kate Canada had her first child three years ago, phthalates was the chemical buzzword that health-conscious moms like her went out of their way to avoid. So she tossed the plastic toys and replaced them with wooden ones. When she had a second daughter this year, BPA became the substance to fear. So she bought all new baby bottles and got vigilant about stocking her pantry with all things BPA-free. Then, a few weeks ago, she heard about an annual report from the President's Cancer Panel that, for the first time, painted a dire picture about potential cancer risks from a legion of environmental hazards.

A new study that suggests that racial differences in biology could be a key reason black women are more likely to die of breast cancer than white women has reignited an intense debate among medical experts about the role of genetics versus factors such as poverty, diet and unequal access to quality health care. For nearly three decades, researchers have known about the disparity in death rates, but they have been puzzled over the reasons why. In Maryland, for example, the breast cancer death rate for black women is 15 percent higher than for white women, even though African-Americans have a lower incidence of the disease.

Women who have healthy ovaries removed when they have a hysterectomy face a higher risk of death, including from coronary heart disease and lung cancer, than those who keep their ovaries, new research shows. The finding, from a study published in the May issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, challenges conventional wisdom that removing ovaries along with the uterus offers the best chance for long-term survival. Doctors have recommended for decades that women who get a hysterectomy consider having both ovaries removed - a surgical procedure called a bilateral oophorectomy - to prevent ovarian cancer later in life.

Heart disease, stroke deaths drop by 30% The death rates for heart disease and stroke each dropped by about 30 percent between 1999 and 2006, allowing the American Heart Association to reach its 2010 goal of a 25 percent reduction in deaths four years early, researchers said last week. "It's one of the most remarkable achievements of modern medicine to have this kind of decline," said Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, a cardiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles' Geffen School of Medicine who was not involved in the research.

Clarification An article Oct. 27 described a report by the U.S. health department's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease on the increased risk of cancer associated with arsenic in the soil of South Baltimore's Swann Park. The report said the increased risk of cancer among the park's most frequent users might be as much as 2 in 10,000 people. The article should have made clear that the risk of cancer in the U.S.

Harvey Leichling watched his 12-year-old son scramble after a baseball under a locked gate that barred the way into a city park and the ball fields on the other side. "Hey," shouted Leichling, "get out of there!" He pointed to a sign on the park's chain link fence: "Closed to All Users by Authority of the Baltimore City Health Department." Leichling and his family have lived beside Swann Park in South Baltimore for almost two decades, but lately he has regarded their oasis of green in a new way - not as a refuge from their industrial neighborhood but as a potential menace to himself and the people he loves, like his son, Cory.

U.S. cancer deaths declined for the second year in a row in 2004, but there are worrisome signs that progress could falter, according to a new report from the American Cancer Society. Deaths fell by 3,014, following a decline of 369 deaths in 2003. While the number of cancer deaths in women increased slightly in 2003, the number fell for both sexes in 2004 - the first time that has happened since the government began keeping death statistics in the 1930s. The death rate for all cancers combined has dropped for 12 consecutive years, a total of 13.6 percent from 1991 to 2004.

Cancer deaths have declined in the United States for the second year in a row, suggesting that decades of research into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease are paying off. A study by the American Cancer Society, released yesterday, found that at least 3,000 fewer people died of cancer in 2004 than in the previous year, a decrease that continues despite a population growing in numbers and in age. According to the ACS, 553,888 people...

U.S. cancer deaths declined for the second year in a row in 2004, but there are worrisome signs that progress could falter, according to a new report from the American Cancer Society. Deaths fell by 3,014, following a decline of 369 deaths in 2003. While the number of cancer deaths in women increased slightly in 2003, the number fell for both sexes in 2004 - the first time that has happened since the government began keeping death statistics in the 1930s. The death rate for all cancers combined has dropped for 12 consecutive years, a total of 13.6 percent from 1991 to 2004.

When Elizabeth Edwards told the world last week that the cancer that had attacked her body two years ago had returned and then added, with some conviction, that she and her husband planned to go forward with his presidential campaign, the news was greeted with a mixture of admiration and doubt. Should someone with cancer and two small children be making plans for an enterprise likely to demand significant investments of time and energy over the next two years? What was she thinking? Katie Couric asked on national television.