Number of U.S. cancer survivors soars to 12 million
By MONIFA THOMAS Staff Reporter mjthomas@suntimes.com March 10, 2011 2:56PM
Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM
The number of cancer survivors in the United States grew to nearly 12 million in 2007, new government figures show.
That’s a significant increase from 1971, when there were 3 million cancer survivors. In 2001, there were 9.8 million.
Continued growth in cancer survivorship is likely due to several factors, including the aging population, early detection, more effective treatment and better followup after treatment, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute concluded in a report released today.
CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden called the findings “good news” and said cancer prevention and early detection remain critically important goals. “Not smoking, getting regular physical activity, eating healthy foods and limiting alcohol use can reduce the risk of many cancers,” he said.
The new figures, published Thursday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, are based on estimates of the number of people ever diagnosed with cancer who were alive on Jan. 1, 2007.
Cases of non-melanoma skin cancer were excluded because they are fairly common but rarely fatal.
People who had been diagnosed with breast cancer accounted for 22 percent of all survivors, more than any other cancer. The next-highest survivorship rates were for prostate cancer (19 percent) and colorectal cancer (10 percent), the CDC reported in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
In other findings, women made up more than half of cancer survivors (54 percent) and 40 percent of cancer survivors had been diagnosed 10 or more years earlier.
“As the number of cancer survivors continues to increase, it is important for medical and public health professionals to be knowledgeable of issues survivors may face, especially the long-term effects of treatment on their physical and psychosocial well-being,”
said Arica White, an epidemic intelligence service officer in CDC’s Division of Cancer Prevention and Control.
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