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HHS RELEASE--CANCER INCIDENCE DATA



I thought this might be of interest. 



-- John

John P. Jacobus, MS

Certified Health Physicist

3050 Traymore Lane

Bowie, MD 20715-2024



e-mail:  jenday1@msn.com





-----Original Message-----

From: NIH LISTSERV (Commands Only) 

Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 12:03 AM

To: List HHSPRESS

Subject: HHSPRESS Digest - 14 Nov 2002 to 18 Nov 2002 (#2002-206)



. . .

Date:  November 18, 2002

For Release: Immediately

Contacts:

CDC Press Office, Michael Greenwell (770) 488-5131

NCI Press Office, Mike Miller (301) 496-6641





Headline:  HHS ISSUES CANCER INCIDENCE DATA BY STATE FOR FIRST TIME



HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today released U.S. Cancer Statistics: 1999

Incidence, 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.



The full report is available at www.cdc.gov/cancer/ and

www.seer.cancer.gov/statistics.





###





Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press materials are

available at www.hhs.gov/news



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