Lung Cancer

An epidemic of lung cancer among American women has been quietly growing for decades, and an end to the upsurge appears nowhere in sight, doctors will report today. For women, deaths due to lung cancer now outstrip those caused by breast cancer and all gynecologic cancers combined, the researchers will report today. The team of medical scientists who assessed the scope of lung cancer in women say mortality has continued to climb in women even as smoking and deaths from the disease have declined in men. Deaths caused by smoking rose 600 percent in U.S. women from 1930 to 1997, and continues to rise, the team of scientists said.

DON HO, 76 Hawaiian singing legend Legendary crooner Don Ho, known for his raspberry-tinted sunglasses and catchy signature tune, "Tiny Bubbles," has died, his publicist said. Publicist Donna Jung said the singer died yesterday morning in Honolulu of heart failure. He had suffered from heart problems for the past several years and had a pacemaker installed last fall. Mr. Ho entertained Hollywood's biggest stars and thousands of tourists for four decades. For many, no trip to Hawaii was complete without seeing his Waikiki show - a mix of songs, jokes, double entendres, Hawaiian history and audience participation.

Events Resources, Medicare facts and care options -- The Baltimore County Department of Aging is offering free discussions to help seniors find information about Medicare and other community health resources in area senior centers this month. 410-887-2594. Classes Type 2 diabetes -- Greater Baltimore Medical Center's Geckle Diabetes & Nutrition Center, 6569 N. Charles St., Physicians' Pavilion East, Suite 507, Towson / Days and times vary. Registration: 443-849-2036. Screenings Colorectal cancer -- Baltimore County Department of Health, 6401 York Road / Free colorectal cancer screenings for Baltimore County residents who meet income and age requirements.

ImClone Systems Inc. Shares climbed $6.97, or 18.4 percent, to $44.90 after the company said the drug Erbitux improved the survival rate of patients with the most common type of lung cancer in a late-stage study.

Only five months after a major study recommended routine use of CT scans to detect lung cancer, a second study recommends the opposite, concluding that the scans do not save lives. Both studies found an estimated 10-year survival rate as high as 90 percent among patients whose cancers were detected early. But the new study, reported Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found no difference in the number of lung cancer deaths between the screened group and a control group.

Events Legal documents seminars -- The Baltimore County Department of Aging and the law firm of Frank, Frank and Scherr LLC are offering free discussions on health care decision-making, estate planning and asset management in area senior centers this month. 410-887-2594. Classes Type 2 diabetes -- Greater Baltimore Medical Center's Geckle Diabetes & Nutrition Center, 6569 N. Charles St., Physicians' Pavilion East, Suite 507, Towson / Days and times vary. Registration: 443-849-2036. Screenings Hernia -- St. Joseph Medical Center, 7601 Osler Drive, Towson / Free for adults 18 and older.

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.

Living fast and dying young has long been part of rock 'n' roll lore. And now there are statistics that affirm the image, according to a study released Tuesday. Researchers at Liverpool John Moores University, whose report appeared in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, studied a sample of North American and British rock and pop stars and concluded they are more than twice as likely to die prematurely as ordinary citizens of the same age. The team studied 1,064 stars from the rock, punk, rap, R&B, electronic and New Age genres in the All Time Top 1,000 albums published in 2000.

Just in time for stop-smoking season, a string of studies during the past six weeks shows that half-steps such as cutting back or exercising are no substitute for the real thing: quitting. First, new research shows that cutting a pack-a-day cigarette habit in half - a common step by people who can't go all the way - does not reduce the risk of dying prematurely, likely because smokers puff more deeply to compensate. "It doesn't work? That's a disappointment," said Janet Lopez, 20, a smoker in Florida who cut back recently.

Arnold Feuerman,81, an inventor and former chairman of Arnold Automotive Group, one of the nation's largest auto dealers, died Friday in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., of liver cancer.Willi Millowitsch,90, one of Germany's best-known comic actors and a fixture at the Cologne carnival, died Monday in Cologne.Fred Roti,78, a former Chicago alderman who was convicted of political corruption, died of lung cancer Monday in Chicago.

Rabbi Elissa Sachs-Kohen was looking for a way to join the fight against lung cancer. The traditional fundraiser - the 5k run - was out. Sachs-Kohen hates running. Instead, the assistant rabbi at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation and several dozen fellow yoga enthusiasts will be taking to the mats today for what they're calling the Free to Breathe Yogathon. On the first day of Lung Cancer Awareness Month, they plan to earn pledges by performing the sun salutation, a sequence of body positions in hatha yoga.

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.

IRVING JOHN GOOD, 92 Helped break Nazi Enigma code Irving John "Jack" Good, a retired Virginia Tech statistician who helped break the Nazi Enigma code for his native England during World War II, died Sunday in Radford, Va., the university said. He had been a professor of statistics at Tech since 1967. A citizen of Great Britain, Dr. Good had worked for British military intelligence on a code-breaking team at Bletchley Park, England. He and other scientists developed an early version of the computer to break one of the German encryption systems.

When Peter Bentey was diagnosed with prostate cancer, the doctor told him that he needed surgery. So did the doctor who gave him a second opinion. And the third. And the fourth. Prepared to have his prostate removed, Bentey kept an appointment with Dr. H. Ballantine Carter, a Johns Hopkins urologist and oncologist. Carter looked at Bentey's blood work and did his own biopsy. The doctor's conclusion? Bentey had prostate cancer, but the New Jersey man did not need surgery. At least not right away.

WASHINGTON - For the first time since the U.S. government began compiling records, the rate of cancer has declined, possibly marking a tipping point in the fight against the second-leading cause of death among Americans. Researchers already knew that the number of cancer deaths was declining as the result of better treatment, but the drop in new cases indicates that major progress is being made in prevention. "The drop in incidence ... is something we have been waiting to see for a long time," said Dr. Otis W. Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

Richard C. Proto, a mathematician and former chief of research at the National Security Agency, died Sunday of lung cancer at his Columbia home. He was 68. Mr. Proto was born and raised in New Haven, Conn., where he graduated in 1958 from Wilbur Cross High School. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Fairfield University in 1962 and a master's in the discipline from Boston College in 1964. Mr. Proto went to work at the NSA at Fort Meade in 1964, where he was a mathematician and chief of research before retiring in 1999.

Marsha Oakley was thumbing through the newspaper Tuesday when she came across the story about Boston Red Sox pitcher and cancer survivor Jon Lester. He tossed a rare no-hitter Monday night, less than two years after being diagnosed with lymphoma. The story left Oakley, a nursing coordinator at the Hoffberger Breast Center at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore and a 22-year breast cancer survivor, feeling jubilant. "To have someone like him who is diagnosed and then goes back out there, what a role model," she said of Lester.

NUALA O'FAOLAIN, 68 Journalist and feminist Nuala O'Faolain, a journalist and feminist who gained international fame with her outspoken 1996 memoir Are You Somebody?, died of lung cancer Friday at a hospice in south Dublin, Ireland, her family said. Ms. O'Faolain, who was a University College Dublin lecturer in literature before becoming one of Ireland's best-known journalists, said in an April radio interview that the lung cancer had spread to her liver and that brain tumors had ruined her ability to concentrate.

People who have spent most of their lives smoking may derive health benefits within five years of quitting - drastically reducing their chance of dying from a heart attack, stroke or lung cancer, according to a study published today. In just five years, quitters reduced their added risk of dying of a heart attack by 47 percent and of lung cancer by 21 percent. Over time, their risk declined to the level of nonsmokers. The message: There is hope for even the most inveterate smokers. "Many people think there's just nothing they can do," said Stacey A. Kenfield, an epidemiologist with the Harvard School of Public Health.

Smoking causes lung cancer. That much is known. But three new studies published today suggest that genes might play a role in why some longtime smokers get the deadly disease and others do not. The scientists say these common genetic variations might also make smokers more likely to become addicted to tobacco and to smoke more cigarettes. The findings, which several experts said mark the first time that a genetic variation has been linked to lung cancer, could lead to a greater understanding of how smoking and genes interact to cause the disease.