Government
issues Cancer Incidence Report...
Includes
state-by-state data for first time
Need
statistics on cancer in the U.S. ? The government site with reports from
1999, 2000 and 2001.
Prostrate
cancer is the big danger for men and breast cancer for women. But, this
report does include data on cancer incidence rates for each state.
Health
and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson introduced U.S. Cancer
Statistics: 1999 Incidence as the most comprehensive federal data
available to date on state-specific cancer incidence rates.
"With
this new data, we can better identify, understand, and address differences
in cancer rates across the country," Secretary Thompson said.
"The state and regional data will prove invaluable to public health
officials as they plan and evaluate cancer control programs and conduct
research."
Produced
jointly by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention and the
National Cancer Institute (NCI), in collaboration with the North American
Association of Central Cancer Registries, this report provides
state-specific and regional data for cancer cases diagnosed in 1999, the
most recent year for which data are available.
The
new data, compiled from cancer registries that have met criteria and
standards of accuracy, completeness and timeliness, are from 37 states,
six metropolitan areas, and the District of Columbia and represent about
78 percent of the U.S. population. Previous reports on cancer incidence
used data from smaller samples of the U.S. population.
Information
from population-based central cancer registries is critical for directing
effective cancer prevention and control programs or other interventions.
Such activities may focus on preventing behaviors that put people at
increased risk for cancer (such as tobacco use and physical inactivity)
and on reducing environmental risk factors (such as occupational
exposures to known carcinogens).
The
findings include:
The
leading cancer in men, regardless of race, is prostate cancer,
followed by lung/bronchus and colon/rectal. Prostate cancer rates are
1.5 times higher in black men than white men.
The
leading cancer in women, regardless of race, is breast cancer, followed
by lung/bronchus and colon/rectal in white women, and colon/rectal and
lung/bronchus in black women. Breast cancer rates are about 20
percent higher in white women than in black women.
Melanomas
of the skin and cancer of the testis are among the top 15 cancers for
white men, but not black men.
Melanomas
of the skin and cancer of the brain/other nervous systems are among the
top 15 cancers for white women, but not black women.
Multiple
myeloma (cancer that arises in plasma cells) and cancer of the stomach
are among the top 15 cancers for black women, but not white women.
Multiple
myeloma and cancer of the liver are among the top 15 cancers for black
men, but not white men.
The
report also shows geographic variations in the occurrence of cancer in the
United States. It does not include information about cancer deaths.
Researchers
will continue to examine the quality of data associated with race,
ethnicity, completeness of reporting, and the effects of using census
projections from 1990. Data collection procedures for identifying
specific racial and ethnic populations vary widely from registry to
registry; therefore, only data for blacks and whites are included in this
report.
Future
United States Cancer Statistics reports will include data for other racial
and ethnic populations. Cancer rates usually have some uncertainty
associated with them and are updated as more information becomes available
from registries and as better estimates of state and regional populations
become available from the U.S. Census Bureau. The process of recalculating
cancer rates is standard practice.