William Atkins
Friday, 05 September 2008 21:29
Science -
Health
Page 2 of 3
Between 1999 and 2004, a total of 1,095,305 lung and bronchial cancers were diagnosed in the United States. Men were diagnosed more often than women.
Black men had the highest rates of lung and bronchial cancers among men, followed by white men. Among women, white women had the highest rates, followed by black women. Non-Hispanics had nearly twice the rate over Hispanics.
People between the ages of 70 and 79 years had the highest rates of lung and bronchial cancers.
Overall, tobacco-related cancer was found more commonly in men (rather than women), African-Americans and non-Hispanics, and people 70 years of age and older.
The state of Kentucky had the highest rate of lung and laryngeal cancers, with the southern region of the United States having the most frequent occurrence of these two cancers. The South is historically a region with high rates of tobacco use (smoking and chewing). Kentucky, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Mississippi (in that order) have the highest percentages of active smokers, at 28.5%, 25.7%, 25.1%, and 25.1%, respectively.
The western region of the United States had the lowest incidences of all cancers, except for stomach cancer.
Although the CDC indicates that 2.4 million cases of tobacco-related cancers occurred in the United States between the years of 1999 to 2004, the report states that the data does not specifically indicate whether these people actually use tobacco. However, they indicated that their conclusions are based on direct relationships found between tobacco use and these cancer types.
The report stated,
“Because information on tobacco use was not available in the databases of the National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR) and Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program, cases of cancer included in this report might or might not be in persons who used tobacco; however, the cancer types included in this report are those defined by the U.S. Surgeon General as having a direct causal relationship with tobacco use (i.e., referred to as tobacco-related cancer in this report).”
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