May 8, 2007
Elizabeth Edwards. Tony Snow. Fred Thompson. Melissa Etheridge. Sheryl Crow. Lance Armstrong. A diverse group with one thing in common - they are living with cancer. Etheridge, Crowe, Thompson and Armstrong are on the winning side of their battles, while Edwards and Snow have recently begun new fights. They are also living examples of the grand strides made against this disease.
With the latest round of cancer confessions, there have also been a number of statistics that have been thrown around and there has been much speculation on the life-span of those battling the disease. The reality is we have made major headway in battling cancer. While a cure is still not within our reach, cancer is widely considered a chronic disease rather than an acute, terminal illness. That, in and of itself, is reason to be hopeful. In order to really understand where we are, we have to look back at how far we've come and how far we still have to go.
According to the National Cancer Institute, for most of the 20th century, death rates from cancer grew, but in the 1990s, began to fall, and the five-year survival rate increased from 35 percent to almost 60 percent. Most of that decline is attributed to decreases in deaths from colorectal, lung, prostate and breast cancers, those we know much about preventing, diagnosing early and treating. During this time, patients went from cancer victims to cancer survivors, and then to people living with cancer.
Those undergoing treatment no longer stayed at home or in a hospital, but continued living their lives as normally as possible. Those living with cancer took the disease out of the closet and showed the rest of us that it was not an immediate death sentence. In doing so, they created a political movement to demand increased funding for cancer research and, in fact, doubled the funding to the National Cancer Institute.
Former First Ladies Betty Ford and Nancy Reagan took their breast cancer battles public, increasing understanding of the disease and acceptance of those living with it. Previously, it was whispered about as a "woman's disease."
The more we learned about the relationship of smoking and lung cancer, Americans began putting down their cigarettes. The more we learned about prevention and early detection, more Americans began getting mammograms and colonoscopies. Indeed, Katie Couric aired her colonoscopy on national television creating what is known in the scientific community as the "Couric Effect," which showed a dramatic increase in colonoscopy screening for colorectal cancer. This disease can be prevented through screening and is 90 percent curable if caught early.
But, we still have far to go, as Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow can attest. Some people do everything right - they don't smoke, eat right, exercise, and still get cancer. Dana Reeve is a tragic example of that.
Americans still are not protecting themselves from the sun as they should - skin cancer is the fastest growing cancer, and it is growing at lightening speed among women. Cases of melanoma - the most serious form - are increasing at a rate of 2.6 percent a year. And, we're still smoking at rates much too high to have a profound effect against lung cancer diagnoses - still the leading cause of cancer death in America.
The incidence of Non-Hodgkins lymphoma has nearly tripled in the past 40 years, and the rates are even higher among patients with HIV/AIDS.
Science also needs to progress beyond the slashing, burning and poisoning (surgery, radiation and chemotherapy) the patient, which sometimes makes it seem as though the treatment is worse than the disease.
Ultimately, every person with cancer strives for the day when prevention and treatment will help them move from living with cancer to just living.