New Colorectal Cancer Cases Dropping in 2010

In 2010, experts predict that 4,400 fewer Americans will be diagnosed with colon and rectal cancer than in 2009.

According to new American Cancer Society statistics for 2010, 142,570 people will hear the difficult words, “You have colorectal cancer”, down from 146,970 in 2009.

Still, 51,370 families will get painful news when loved ones die from colorectal cancer.

Continuing this year, African Americans are more likely to develop colorectal cancer than whites and other races, to die of it, and to have poorer survival at every stage of the disease. Continue reading…

Posted by Kate Murphy on July 12th, 2010
Posted in: Research & Treatment News | No Comments »
Tags: cancer statistics, colorectal cancer deaths, colorectal cancer incidence, disparities

Colonoscopies Not Perfect in Stopping Colorectal Cancer Deaths

The percentage of colorectal cancer deaths prevented by colonoscopy may be overestimated.

While still very effective in preventing colorectal cancer and deaths from the disease, limits of the test may be larger than previously thought.  Patients need to know that having colonoscopy does not guarantee that they won’t get colorectal cancer.

Experts now say that screening colonoscopy may reduce death from colorectal cancer by 60 to 70 percent and may not keep patients from dying from cancers on the right side of their colons at all.

A new Canadian study found that some people who died of colorectal cancer had a colonoscopy in the years before their cancer diagnosis.  A previous completed colonoscopy reduced chances of dying from colorectal cancer by two thirds in patients with cancers on the left side of their colons but did not decrease risk of death among those with right-sided cancers. Continue reading…

Posted by Kate Murphy on December 17th, 2008
Posted in: Research & Treatment News | 3 Comments »
Tags: colonoscopy, colorectal cancer deaths, screening

Rates for New Cancers Go Down for the First Time

Led by dropping rates of lung, breast, and colorectal cancer, the incidence rate of all new cancers in the United States is falling for the first time.  While overall cancer death rates have been decreasing since the early 1990′s, this is the first time that rates of new cancer diagnoses are also declining.

In the Annual Report to the Nation, the rate of newly diagnosed cancer fell 1.7 percent per year between 2001 and 2005.  Death rates for all cancers combined fell 1.8 percent annually during the same time period.

Both incidence of new colorectal cancers and colorectal cancer death rates continued to decline with the new report.  Between 1998 and 2005, incidence rates for men fell 3 percent annually while rates for women declined 2.4 percent.  Death rates fell 4.3 percent between 2002 and 2005 for both sexes.

Continue reading…

Posted by Kate Murphy on December 4th, 2008
Posted in: Research & Treatment News | No Comments »
Tags: cancer statistics, colorectal cancer deaths, disparities

Decreases in Cancer Deaths Limited to Highly-Educated

For people from 25 to 64, U. S. death rates from the four major cancers — lung, breast, prostate, and colorectal — have decreased steadily from the early 1990′s.  However, with a single exception, those declines have been limited to people with at least 12 years of education.

For colon and rectal cancer, death rates for those with at least 16 years of education declined significantly for men and women, both black and white.  However, death rates did not change at all for white men, white women or black women who had less than a high school education.  Death rates for black men with less than 12 years of education actually increased by 2.7 percent each year. Continue reading…

Posted by Kate Murphy on July 10th, 2008
Posted in: Research & Treatment News | No Comments »
Tags: colorectal cancer deaths, statistics