Cancer Deaths Down

Results from a new American Cancer Society (ACS) report on cancer prevention reveals two major developments – last year the actual number of cancer deaths declined for the first time, and cancer deaths are largely preventable.
According to 2005 ACS statistics, 185 Queens residents were diagnosed with cancer each week and 69 individuals died every week.
Cancer Prevention & Early Detection Facts and Figures 2006 (CPED), a comprehensive annual report detailing factors that affect cancer risk, claims that early screening tests and positive lifestyle changes could cut cancer deaths in half.
The report estimates that there will be more than 88,000 new cancer cases in New York in 2006, and more than 35,000 deaths, but many of them may have been preventable.
“This year, for the first time, there was a drop in the reported number of actual cancer deaths in the U.S. This is clear evidence that our investment in research, our work to educate the public about prevention and early detection, and our efforts to advocate for legislation to win the fight against cancer are working,” said Dr. Alfred Ashford, chief medical spokesman for the ACS’s Eastern Division.
In 2005, four cancer sites, lung and bronchus, prostate, breast and colorectal accounted for 54.3 percent of all cancer cases and 50.8 percent of all cancer deaths in Queens County.