The United States publishes an annual cancer report every year, and the 2017 edition has recently been released. As always, there are a lot of statistics and information in it, which is worth reading.
Although it is the data of the United States, because they are the world leader in cancer prevention and anti-cancer and have many experiences and lessons, they should be able to bring great inspiration to the Chinese government and the masses and better fight this persistent disease.
Here are 7 points of information that pineapple personally thinks are very important.
What is the overall situation?
In recent years, the incidence of cancer in the United States has begun to decline, especially among men. In the past 10 years, the number of men suffering from cancer has decreased by 2% every year. This is mainly due to the continuous decline of lung cancer, colorectal cancer and prostate cancer.
Lung cancer and colorectal cancer are also on the decline in women, but the overall change is not significant due to the increase in breast cancer, thyroid cancer, skin cancer, etc. Breast cancer and thyroid cancer may both have over-diagnosis problems (benign tumors are defined as malignant), so the overall should be more optimistic.
What is more noteworthy is the continuous and significant decline in cancer mortality among men and women in the United States. In the past 20 years or so, the overall mortality rate has dropped by 25%, and more than 2.1 million people have avoided dying of cancer. This is very remarkable!
The three most important factors are tobacco control, promotion of screening and development of new therapies.
Most of the time we pay attention to the treatment after cancer. In fact, tobacco control and promotion of cancer prevention methods such as screening are more critical to reduce morbidity and mortality.
In China, both cancer morbidity and mortality continue to rise and there is still a long way to go.
Get leukemia, is basically a death?
In the past 30 years, due to the progress of modern medicine, the 5-year survival rate of cancer in the United States has increased by 20% as a whole, especially for patients aged 50-64.
In terms of cancer types, the most obvious changes are leukemia and lymphoma.
Compared with 2010 and 1970, the survival rate of acute lymphoblastic leukemia increased from 41% to 71%, and that of chronic myeloid leukemia increased from 22% to 66%. Many people can be cured. The average life span of leukemia patients who are suitable for Glivec with targeted drugs is no different from that of normal people.
Many people do not know these data and are deceived by articles demonizing Western medicine on the Internet. It is painful to give up treatment.
Two weeks ago, someone transferred an article to Pineapple [Did Luo Yixiao die of illness or death? ], a so-called financial writer faced with no understanding of the field, the language is not surprising death endlessly, said [leukemia, basically is a death]. Incredibly easy 100,000 + reading, reward countless people.
I really envy these people who can collect IQ tax without conscience.
In fact, many leukemia patients are cured in China every year. If every recovered person slaps this [expert] in the face, I believe Beijing’s recovered person will be enough to slap him to death.
Please cherish your life and stay away from the popular science of [economists] or [financial experts].
They know how to make money, but they don’t know how to save people.
The amazing effect of banning smoking
Although prostate cancer is the most common disease in men and breast cancer is the most common disease in women in the United States, the survival rates of both are very high. Lung cancer is undoubtedly the number one killer, far ahead of the second.
Lung cancer accounts for more than one-fourth of all cancer deaths in the United States every year!
But the United States has seen hope. The tobacco control campaign, which began in the 1960s, has continued to reduce the number of smokers for 40 years and banned smoking in public places. Through decades of efforts, significant returns have been achieved. From 1990 to 2014, the death rate from lung cancer among men in the United States decreased by 43%!
What about what?
It’s frustrating.
I just want to tell you one data: the smoking rate of male doctors in China is 20% ~ 60%! (1% in the United States)
Changes Brought about by Popularization of Screening
Colorectal cancer is one of the major cancers in the United States, but the incidence rate has decreased by 3% every year in the past ten years. This is mainly due to the popularity of screening, especially colonoscopy. Colonoscopy is recommended for people over 50 years old in the United States. In 2000, the proportion was only 21%, but it rose to 60% in 2015.
It usually takes more than 15 years for colorectal tumors to develop from benign to malignant. If they can be found at an early stage, the cure rate is very high (more than 90%) after surgical resection. Colonoscopy and other screening methods can effectively find early tumors. It is its popularity that has significantly reduced the incidence of malignant colorectal cancer in the United States.
The proportion of people over 50 years old receiving colonoscopy in China is only 15%, and there is still great room for improvement.
In addition, lung cancer screening for high-risk groups should also attract attention.
U.S. Studies have found that people at high risk of lung cancer (who have smoked or currently smoke more than 30 packs per year) can reduce the mortality rate by 20% if low-dose spiral CT is performed every year to screen lung cancer.
However, unfortunately, only 3% of the high-risk population in the United States are regularly screened, and in China, the figure is close to 0.
There is no doubt that cancer screening in China is a sunrise industry, but it will certainly be very chaotic.
In order to prevent bad coins from driving out good ones and prevent cheat advertisements such as [5-minute cancer screening] [saliva screening for dozens of cancers] from rampant, reliable businesses and popular science personnel need to work together.
Avoid over-diagnosis
Since 2010, the number of prostate cancer patients in the United States has dropped sharply. The main reason is to reduce over-diagnosis!
The United States has vigorously promoted PSA screening, A large number of [prostate cancer] were found at once, This directly led to a surge in the number of cancer patients in the early 1990s (see the first picture). Later, it was found that there were a large number of false positives in PSA screening, resulting in severe over-diagnosis and over-treatment. Many so-called cancer patients actually did not need treatment at all. PSA screening is still in use, but after knowing its possible problems, doctors are more cautious in judging cancer, and the number of patients is much smaller at once.
A similar situation also occurs in thyroid cancer. The number of thyroid cancer patients has increased significantly recently, which is related to more accurate physical examination methods. However, the problem is that thyroid cell proliferation or nodules do not mean malignant thyroid cancer!
The American Cancer Institute is likely to reclassify thyroid cancer in 2017, with 20% of thyroid cancer likely to be [downgraded] to benign tumors. Recent studies have found that in the face of such tumors, only local surgery is required to remove the tumor, and the 15-year disease-free survival rate exceeds 99%! There is no need for total thyroidectomy, chemotherapy or iodine 131 radiotherapy.
Sometimes, less is better than more. But don’t go to extremes. Take these two examples to prove that [cancer needs no treatment].
What is the cancer situation in children?
Cancer in children and adolescents is completely different from cancer in adults and needs separate statistics. It is also a focus of research in the US anti-cancer moon landing program.
In the United States, the incidence of childhood cancer has been stable in recent years and has not increased significantly. The mortality rate has been declining continuously. The 5-year survival rate of most cancers in children under 14 years old is above 70%, many above 90%. The best categories include thyroid cancer (99.7%), Hodgkin lymphoma (97.7%), retinoblastoma (95.3%), lymphoblastic leukemia (90.2%), etc.
Compared with leukemia and lymphoma, there is still much room for improvement in children’s solid tumors as a whole, and further efforts are needed in scientific research and clinical practice.
In China, there is a comprehensive gap between the diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation (psychological counseling), medical insurance and new drug development of childhood cancer and that of the United States, requiring the attention and joint efforts of the whole society.
This is a long process and there is no shortcut. However, just as the United States began to ban smoking 40 years ago, continuous investment is bound to yield significant results.
A distinctive Asian
There is a particularly interesting data in the 2017 report: the cancer rate of Asian Americans is significantly lower than that of other races!
Not lower, but much lower!
The overall incidence rate is only 59.7% for Asian men and 65.8% for women. The mortality rate is only 60.1% for Asian men and 61% for women.
Lung cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, kidney cancer and other major cancer types, Asian are all low. It’s a bit unbelievable, but the data are true.
Is Asian gene born beautiful? Healthy lifestyle? Or is it a high level of education and good medical conditions? I don’t know yet. I guess there are both. It should be a combination of factors.
As a Chinese, I am obviously very happy to see this data. Whether it is genes or living habits, in short, we have obvious natural advantages in anti-cancer, so don’t spoil it.
It is worth noting that although Asian Americans are in the lead as a whole, the incidence rate of two types of cancers is higher than that of other races, namely gastric cancer and liver cancer. These two types of cancers are also high in China, both of which are closely related to infection and belong to [cancer of the poor]. The bad news is that the death rate of these two cancers is very high, and the good news is that they can be prevented, so we must understand.
I am looking forward to a comparison of data between Chinese and Asian Americans (even Chinese Americans). The genes and lifestyles of these two categories of people are very close, but the environment and medical treatment are different. A comparison should reveal a lot of knowledge about cancer prevention and anticancer.
Summary
The above is my feeling, I hope it will be helpful to everyone. The content of the report goes far beyond this. Interested readers can learn it by themselves and believe they will have more experience.
The original text of the US 2017 Report is here:
Http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/caac.21387/full
It is strongly recommended to compare with the following latest Chinese cancer report, which is very interesting:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/caac.21338/full
In 2017, I hope everyone will live a healthy life.