Didn't declare it a victory, didn't intend to play around with cancer data, and didn't feel the need to get into racial differences among specific groups. All I intended was to dispel the notion that the incidence of cancer is somehow mushrooming out of control (which is what seems to be worrying lawtomd). I know people can do all kinds of things with statistics, and no, I am not a statistician. As I said, all I intended was to put some folks' minds at ease with the fact that, over the last 30 years, the OVERALL incidence of cancer is not spiraling out of control, but is in fact, flat to possibly slightly decreased. I realize, of course, that any given individual's risk depends on a number of things, including race, family history, SES, smoking, drinking, eating, and sexual habits, etc. My personal risk is probably somewhat higher than average, with a strong family history of colon polyps and a new family history of breast cancer, but I would not take offense if someone quoted me overall statistics.

No offense taken. My concern is that we are FAR, FAR away from putting a serious dent into cancer incidence/mortality given the 30 year serious "fight" and when statsitics get published which say that say that cancer is decreasing, people will mistakenly conclude that cancer research no longer needs to be a national priority. And that means, less funding dollars for cancer research and potentially increases in "risky" behavior like smoking, sex (IE multiple sex partners/HPV), weight gain, and lack of exercise.

So again, many more racial/gender/ethnic groups need to be concerned about thier overall health as it relates to cancer risk. And I'll admit that cancer research (previously in cancer epidemiology and lab research which I hope to parlay into pathology one day;) ) is a career and personal passion of mine so I tend to get a little "overinvolved" when the issue of cancer comes up.

Cultural- In the minority communities, especially the black communty, there's a serious mistrust of the health care system (ie Tuskegee expt). So even when a minority woman has health insurance, is educated, and is middle to upper class, there's what I think is an EXTREME reluctance to trust the "system". This is one reason why I'm so glad and thankful people like YOU are in place as physicians.

On another note, balck folks are real keen on saying "Baby ain't nothin wrong wit' you, just go pray it away". When I had my first biopsy my mother, who is a CRNA with 2 Master's dergrees in health fields told me that I "Needed to reject the devil, and go pray". She even told me that getting the biopsy was a waste of time. Now this is a highly educated Nurse, with 25+ years of expereince at the time telling me to go pray. Needless to say, I was DEVASTED, but had what turned out to be a precancerous lesion removed anyway. Other family memnbers told me I was cursed by someone, and my former church was the WORST in terms of support!!!!

Time to Dx - Related to cultural, black women are most often Dx when cancer is in stage II or III, or course depending on the cancer. Bottom line is that they often wait to get things checked even when they have the means to do so. In other situstion, the "established" guidlines form cancer prevention don't apply to minority women, IMHO. For example I think black women should get baseline mamograms at age 30 instead of 35 as is currently recommended and ther are a number of big name minority cancer researchers who feel the same( I had to demand a base line before age 35 even with my family history! ). The reason I feel this way is related to the pathology of the tumors black women get, highly aggressive, highly undifferntiated, many mitotic figures, prominant nucleoi, ect.ect and often N1, NOT a good situation.

Treatment- A study recently showed that blacks are less likely to be given the same treatment options as whites form most of the "big 15" cancers and this boils down to racism plain and simple. This is why it's crucial to have more minority doctors and/or doctors willing to work wiht minority populations for reaosns otehr than they couldn't find a gig elsewhere. Obvioulsy, with larger and more advanced tumors upon presentation, this one fact is so very crucial to survival from cancer. OTOH, my father didn't take the chemo because he did'nt want his hair to fall out. WTF!!!!!! An uncle wouldn't have his prostate removed because he wanted to keep what little "ying" he had left in his "yang"!!!

So when you analyze the data with all things being equal, access to healthcare, SES, educational leves, minorities are STILL disproportionately afflicted with cancer and a good portion of it is our own doing.

I think if your name is Kennedy, Jordan, Bush, Cosby, or Lopez you get the latest and the greatest preventions available. With a strong family history of cancer, I'd get it too. In the end, the number of "false positives" from this tool combined with the cost, doesn't justify the expense................................. unless of course you or someone you know could have benefited from it.

We had a bunch of oncology lectures right before we got out of school and there were some really interesting points raised in them. One was that the only type of cancer with a really large increase in incidence rate, was lung cancer. We can all see why that would be the case. Breast cancer has also had a slight increase in incidence. On the other hand, stomach cancers in both sexes have decreased dramatically. Uterine cancer in women has also decreased thanks to screening and the fact that we can now remove precancerous lesions before they turn into cancerous lesions. Almost all the other cancer incidence rates have remianed stable - that includes colon and rectum, bladder, ovarian, lymphoma etc. There is a blip on the graph in the late 90's where it looks like prostate cancer went up, but that's due to how strongly prostate cancer screening was pushed at the time - obviously, if you screen more people, you'll find more cancer. Since then it has remained steady. I wonder if this may be the case with the apparent increase in breast cancer?(Source for these statistics: Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program, 1973-1999, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, 2002. These people come out with a new study every few years so a more updated one should be out soon).

I only went into all of this to say that while some cancers (mainly lung) have become much more common, most have remained steady, and some have greatly decreased. This study went back to 1973, but some studies going back until 1900 have shown the same thing. Based on these facts, I think we need to be realistic that there are certain lifesyle choices we can make to reduce our chances of getting cancer (many of which Path mentioned). I don't think, however, that we need to be fatalistic and assume that because we are alive in 2005 we have a greatly increased chance of receiving a cancer diagnosis. It just doesn't appear to be the case based on the stattistics. So rest as easy as you can (and don't smoke or eat char broiled meat!)

USA has the highest rate of diseases. I'm amazed at how many people are sick here (physically & mentally) and by population how much healthier other nations are without all these toxins in the food & environment.

Just look at food biotechnology. Europe & Japan think USA is crazy modifying nature's food. They don't allow these foods to enter their markets. 70% of the produce has been genetically modified already. God knows what will show up later. A lot of things are not evident at first.

My mom is all excited about this Dr in Germany that is in jail...his findings are that cancer is mostly an emotional issue....I really don't have all the details, but one thing I do believe in is that for a long time USA will keep investing in the treatment more than the prevention. There's more money to be made in treatments than anything else.

I saw on CNN that Germany has found the cure for cancer at stage 1.....I haven't seen/read anything anymore.

It's all about money, money and more money here :no: It will change one day when more and more people become aware of this and make the change. We are consuming way too much drugs--no other country in the world is doing this.

We do need to go back to basics with the new healthy things we have found. The rest is garbage. Until then, we have to stay informed and do our best every day to stay healthy and truly appreciate it.

If I were to be granted on wish it would be a cure for cancer. I watched my mother battle cancer from when I was young (she was diagnosed when pregnant with me) until the cancer took her from me when I was 10yrs old. I watched my friend die from leuchemia at the age of 15, a close friend of my fiance passed away 2 months ago from stage 4 brain cancer, and my friend has a cancerous brain tumor and she is only 28yrs old. This disease is not fair, as all are not, and I wish there were something to stop it. This is one of my main factors for persueing medicine, even though I plan to specialize in psychiatry, cancer was what brought me here, and I hope to see a more productive treatment or cure throughout my jouney in medicine.