Windsor's cancer hotbed 'myth' disputed

[MBC]

Researcher disputes Windsor cancer hotbed 'myth'

Sonja Puzic, Windsor Star
Published: Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Windsor is not "the cancer cesspool" of Ontario as many people believe, a medical oncologist and Windsor Regional Cancer Centre researcher says.

Extremely high cancer rates in Windsor and Essex County are an "urban myth" rather than fact, Dr. Caroline Hamm told a public forum Tuesday on the progress of cancer research.

"In a lot of cases, we're on par with other communities in Ontario," she said at the Canadian Cancer Society event. "We're average people."

Hamm cited research that followed the increase of breast, colorectal, lung and prostate cancers across the province from 1980 and 1996 and pointed out that Windsor-Essex only had higher incidents of lung cancer during that time.

"We know that we have a higher number of smokers in this region," she said.

10 PER CENT LOWER

Hamm also cited a 2000 community health profile which concluded that Windsor and Essex County's rate of all cancers combined is 10 per cent lower than that of Ontario.

"Why didn't this make it to (the media)?" she said. "This is pretty important."

Hamm, who specializes in breast, melanoma and blood cancers, also said local researchers are making great strides in contributions to Canadian cancer research.

She listed a number of health care professionals who are involved in clinical trials, partnerships with the University of Windsor and innovative treatment techniques.

Local studies include looking at the impact of estrogen in breast cancer patients and clinical trials involving Herceptin, a drug used to treat some women with advanced breast cancer, Hamm said.

Hamm was joined by Dr. Michael Wosnick, executive director of the National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC), who spoke about the progress in preventing, detecting and treating the disease.

"We're not doing the kinds of surgeries we once used to," he said. "They've become more precise and more sophisticated."

FEWER SIDE-EFFECTS

For example, chemotherapy is now typically administered in more continuous, low doses rather than the maximum dose the patient can tolerate, Wosnick said. Patients are not as sick and have fewer side-effects.

Researchers are now focused on making various forms of treatment more effective at killing only cancer cells and sparing the healthy ones.

"We've been able to give people a better quality of life," Wosnick said. "We have high cure rates for many cancers."

Among those are childhood leukemia, breast cancer, thyroid cancer and colorectal cancer.

Wosnick said a newly diagnosed cancer patient had a one in four chance of survival in the 1940s. Today, the same patient has a 60 per cent chance of surviving the disease.

SURVIVAL RATES UP

An estimated 159,900 new cases of cancer and 72,700 deaths from cancer will occur in Canada in 2007. Thirty per cent of new cancer cases and 18 per cent of cancer deaths will occur in young and middle-aged adults. Lung cancer is still the leading cause of cancer death for men and women, followed by colorectal and breast cancers.

It is estimated 39 per cent of Canadian women and 44 per cent of men will get cancer at some point in their lives. About one of every four Canadians will die from cancer. The good news is that cancer survival rates have been improving steadily since the 1970s and continue to climb.

If you're interested in participating in a local clinical cancer trial, visit www.OntarioCancerTrials.ca.
© The Windsor Star 2007
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[Noxshus]

I read that in the paper that day. Jacked me up quite a bit. Disease is evolving as society does. We don't get killed off by plagues anymore so we live to see other stronger ailments.

I think the key to our survival though, is breathing lots of good clean Detroit air. Mmm-mmm.

[T Steady]

you better believe it