death rates – Oral Cancer News

Study Finds- Fewer Dying from Throat & Mouth Cancer in the U.S.

Source: HealthDay News, US News and World Report Author: Staff Death rates improved most for patients with more than 12 years' education Death rates for U.S. patients with throat and mouth cancers decreased between 1993 and 2007, a new study shows. The finding comes from an analysis of National Center for Health Statistics data on white and black men and women, aged 25 to 64, in 26 states. The researchers also found that the largest decreases in death rates for mouth and throat (pharynx) cancers were among black patients with at least 12 years of education. The study appears in the November issue of the Archives of Otolaryngology -- Head & Neck Surgery. Death rates increased among white men with fewer than 12 years of education, according to Dr. Amy Y. Chen, of Emory University School of Medicine and the American Cancer Society, and colleagues. Another study in the same issue of the journal found that poor overall quality of life, pain and continued tobacco use seem to be associated with poorer outcomes and a higher death rate two years after diagnosis for patients with head and neck cancer. The study included 276 patients diagnosed between September 2001 and September 2008. The overall survival rate two years after diagnosis was 90.8 percent. The likelihood of death within two years of diagnosis was: four times higher for those who reported low quality of life than for those who reported a high quality of life; four times higher for those who continued [...]

Charlotte Parker2011-11-22T09:05:47-07:00November, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Cancer death rate gap widens based on education

Source: apnews.myway.com Author: Mike Stobbe The gap in cancer death rates between college graduates and those who only went to high school is widening, the American Cancer Society reported Friday. Among men, the least educated died of cancer at rates more than 2 1/2 times that of men with college degrees, the latest data show. In the early 1990s, they died at two times the rate of most-educated men. For women, the numbers aren't as complete but suggest a widening gap also. The data, from 2007, compared people between the ages of 25 and 64. People with college degrees are seeing a significant drop in cancer death rates, while people who have spent less time in school are seeing more modest improvements or sometimes none at all, explained Elizabeth Ward, who oversees research done by the cancer society. The cancer society estimates there will be nearly 1.6 million new cancer cases in the United States this year, and 571,950 deaths. It also notes that overall cancer death rates have been dropping since the early 1990s, but the decline has been greater for some groups more than others. Experts believe that the differences have to do with education, how much people earn and where they live, among other factors. Researchers like to use education as a measuring stick because death certificates include that information. "Just because we're measuring education doesn't mean we think education is the direct reason" for the differences among population groups, Ward said. That said, the cancer death [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-06-17T06:43:24-07:00June, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Where cancer progress is rare, one man says no

Source: nytimes.com Author: Gardiner Harris Politicians and researchers have predicted for nearly four decades that a cure for cancer is near, but cancer death rates have hardly budged and most new cancer drugs cost a fortune while giving patients few, if any, added weeks of life. For this collective failure, the man atop the nation’s regulatory agency for new cancer drugs increasingly — and supporters say unfairly — gets the blame: Dr. Richard Pazdur. Patient advocates have called Dr. Pazdur, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s cancer drug office, a murderer, conservative pundits have vilified him as an obstructionist bureaucrat, and guards are now posted at the agency’s public cancer advisory meetings to protect him and other committee members. “The industry is not producing that many good drugs, so now they’re looking for scapegoats in Rick Pazdur and the F.D.A.,” said Ira S. Loss, who follows the drug industry for Washington Analysis, a service for investors. In 10 years at the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Pazdur, 57, has helped to loosen approval standards for cancer medicines and made it easier for dying patients to get experimental drugs. But he demands that drug makers prove with near certainty that their products are beneficial, a requirement that he repeated at a public advisory hearing on Sept. 1 in the slow, loud tones of someone disciplining a dog. After he spoke, the committee of experts voted to reject both drugs. Critics say that Dr. Pazdur’s resolve has cost thousands of lives [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-09-16T05:02:16-07:00September, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

U.S. cancer death rates continue to fall

Source: www.ajc.com Author: staff Some 650,000 people are alive today who wouldn't be were it not for advances in cancer prevention, detection and treatment over the past 15 years, new statistics show. The American Cancer Society's Cancer Statistics 2009 report finds an encouraging 19.2 percent drop in cancer death rates among men from 1990 to 2005, as well as an 11.4 percent drop in women's cancer death rates during the same time period. Overall, cancer death rates fell 2 percent per year from 2001 to 2005 in men and 1.6 percent per year from 2002 to 2005 in women. By comparison, between 1993 and 2001, overall death rates in men declined 1.5 percent per year and, between 1994 and 2002, 0.8 percent in women. "We continue to see a decrease in death rates from cancer in both men and women and this is mainly because of prevention - mostly a reduction in smoking rates; detection which includes screening for colorectal cancer, for breast cancer and for cervical cancer; and also improved treatment," said report author Ahmedin Jemal, strategic director for cancer surveillance at the American Cancer Society. "To put this in perspective, the number of lives saved is more than the population of Washington, D.C.," said Dr. Louis M. Weiner, director of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University. "In my mind, that's a cause for some celebration. However, there are some sobering trends that we have to be aware of. The death rate for cardiovascular disease has dropped [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-05-27T14:47:13-07:00May, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

Deadly in pink: new report warns big tobacco has stepped up targeting of women and girls

Source: www.rwjf.org Author: staff The tobacco industry has unleashed its most aggressive marketing campaigns aimed at women and girls in over a decade, according to a report issued today by a coalition of public health organizations. The report warns that these new marketing campaigns are putting the health of women and girls at risk and urges Congress to regulate tobacco marketing by passing legislation granting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority over tobacco products. The report, “Deadly in Pink: Big Tobacco Steps Up Its Targeting of Women and Girls,” was issued by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. The report and images of the tobacco marketing campaigns can be found at www.tobaccofreekids.org/deadlyinpink In the last two years, the nation’s two largest tobacco companies—Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds—have launched new marketing campaigns that depict cigarette smoking as feminine and fashionable, rather than the harmful and deadly addiction it really is: In October 2008, Philip Morris USA announced a makeover of its Virginia Slims brand into “purse packs”—small, rectangular cigarette packs that contain “superslim” cigarettes. Available in mauve and teal and half the size of regular cigarette packs, the sleek “purse packs” resemble packages of cosmetics and fit easily in small purses. They come in “Superslims Lights” and “Superslims Ultra Lights” versions, continuing the tobacco industry’s history of associating smoking with weight control and of appealing to women’s health concerns with misleading claims [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-02-21T10:42:24-07:00February, 2009|Oral Cancer News|

New cases of cancer decline in the United States

Source: nytimes.com Author: Roni Cryn Rabin The incidence of new cancer cases has been falling in recent years in the United States, the first time such an extended decline has been documented, researchers reported Tuesday. Cancer diagnosis rates decreased by an average of 0.8 percent each year from 1999 to 2005, the last year for which data are available, according to an annual report by the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society and other scientific organizations. Death rates from cancer continued to decline as well, a trend that began some 15 years ago, the report also noted. It was published online in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute. “Each year that you see these steady declines it gives you more confidence that we’re moving in the right direction,” said Dr. John E. Niederhuber, director of the National Cancer Institute, who is not an author of the report. “This is not just a blip on the screen.” Death rates from cancer fell an average of 1.8 percent each year from 2002 to 2005, according to the new report. Although last year’s report said death rates dropped an average of 2.1 percent each year from 2002 to 2004, a modest 1 percent decline in 2005 lowered the average percentage for the period. The decline is primarily due to a reduction in death rates from certain common cancers, including prostate cancer and lung cancer in men, breast cancer in women and colorectal cancer in both sexes. The report attributes the reductions [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2008-11-26T10:36:32-07:00November, 2008|Oral Cancer News|