Cancer: Some Encouragement

Despite years of research, doctors have found neither the causes nor a universal cure for cancer, which will strike 665,000 people and kill some 365,000 this year in the U.S. alone. Still, they are making significant progress against the disease. The American Cancer Society has announced that the incidence of several major cancers has dropped dramatically in recent years and that survival rates for those stricken with several forms of cancer are improving.

The A.C.S. based its report on a 22-year comparison of cancer statistics. Its study showed that during the years between 1947 and 1969, the overall incidence of ovarian cancer dropped 10%, cancer of the esophagus by 23%, cancers of the rectum and of the bladder (in women) by 26% each. Cancer of the uterus, which afflicts an estimated 61 of every 100,000 women a year, dropped 37% during this period; cancer of the stomach, which once affected 24 people per 100,000 every year, by 63%. The only increases: lung cancer (125%) and about 20% increases each in cancers of the prostate, bladder and colon in men, and the pancreas in both men and women. The rates for breast and colon cancer in women are virtually unchanged.

Twenty-five years ago, the A.C.S. reported only one out of every four cancer patients survived for at least five years after the disease was diagnosed. Today one out of every three survives, a saving of 55,000 lives a year.

Puzzling Disparity. In another study, the National Cancer Institute surveyed the cases of 219,493 white and 21,088 black patients whose cancers were diagnosed between 1955 and 1964. It found significant differences in survival by race, site of cancer and sex. Half of the white women in the study and a third of the white men survived at least five years after diagnosis. Among blacks, 40% of the women and less than 25% of the men survived five years.

The N.C.I, is puzzled by the disparities. There is no evidence that blacks in the study received less care than whites. One possible explanation could be that the immune systems of blacks and whites respond differently to cancerous growths. The N.C.I, analysis showed that -with a few notable exceptions -even when their cancers were diagnosed at the same stage of development, whites lived longer than blacks.

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