Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts

EPEDEMIOLOGY

Death rate from malignant cancer per 100,000 inhabitants in 2004.[90]
no data ≤ 55 55-80 80-105 105-130 130-155 155-180 180-205 205-230 230-255 255-280 280-305 ≥ 305

As of 2004, worldwide cancer caused 13% of all deaths (7.4 million). The leading causes were: lung cancer (1.3 million deaths/year), stomach cancer (803,000 deaths), colorectal cancer (639,000 deaths), liver cancer (610,000 deaths), and breast cancer (519,000 deaths).[91] Greater than 30% of cancer is preventable via avoiding risk factors including: tobacco, overweight or obesity, low fruit and vegetable intake, physical inactivity, alcohol, sexually transmitted infections, and air pollution.[37]

In the United States, cancer is responsible for 25% of all deaths with 30% of these from lung cancer. The most commonly occurring cancer in men is prostate cancer (about 25% of new cases) and in women is breast cancer (also about 25%). Cancer can occur in children and adolescents, but it is uncommon (about 150 cases per million in the U.S.), with leukemia the most common.[92] In the first year of life the incidence is about 230 cases per million in the U.S., with the most common being neuroblastoma.[93]

In the developed world, one in three people will develop cancer during their lifetimes. If all cancer patients survived and cancer occurred randomly, the lifetime odds of developing an second primary cancer would be one in nine.[94] However, cancer survivors have an increased risk of developing a second primary cancer, and the odds are about two in nine.[94] About half of these second primaries can be attributed to the normal one-in-nine risk associated with random chance.[94] The increased risk is believed to be primarily due to the same risk factors that produced the first cancer, such as the person's genetic profile, alcohol and tobacco use, obesity, and environmental exposures, and partly due, to the treatment for the first cancer, which typically includes mutagenic chemotherapeutic drugs or radiation.[94] Cancer survivors may also be more likely to comply with recommended screening, and thus may be more likely than average to detect cancers.[94]

Most common cancers in males, by occurrence[92]

in females, by occurrence[92]

in males, by mortality[92]

in females, by mortality[92]


No comments:

RESEARCH

Cancer research is the intense scientific effort to understand disease processes and discover possible therapies. The improved understanding of molecular biology and cellular biology due to cancer research has led to a number of new, effective treatments for cancer since President Nixon declared "War on Cancer" in 1971. Since 1971 the United States has invested over $200 billion on cancer research; that total includes money invested by public and private sectors and foundations.[102] Despite this substantial investment, the country has seen a five percent decrease in the cancer death rate (adjusting for size and age of the population) between 1950 and 2005.[103]

Leading cancer research organizations and projects include the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Cancer Society (ACS), the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, the National Cancer Institute, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, and The Cancer Genome Atlas project at the NCI.
No comments:

GLOSSARY

The following closely related terms may be used to designate abnormal growths:

* Tumor or tumour: originally, it meant any abnormal swelling, lump or mass. In current English, however, the word tumor has become synonymous with neoplasm, specifically solid neoplasm. Note that some neoplasms, such as leukemia, do not form tumors.
* Neoplasm: the scientific term to describe an abnormal proliferation of genetically altered cells. Neoplasms can be benign or malignant:
o Malignant neoplasm or malignant tumor: synonymous with cancer.
o Benign neoplasm or benign tumor: a tumor (solid neoplasm) that stops growing, does not invade other tissues and does not form metastases.
* Invasive tumor is another synonym of cancer. The name refers to invasion of surrounding tissues.
* Pre-malignancy, pre-cancer or non-invasive tumor: A neoplasm that is not invasive but has the potential to progress to cancer (become invasive) if left untreated. These lesions are, in order of increasing potential for cancer, atypia, dysplasia and carcinoma in situ.

The following terms can be used to describe a cancer:

* Screening: a test done on healthy people to detect tumors before they become apparent. A mammogram is a screening test.
* Diagnosis: the confirmation of the cancerous nature of a lump. This usually requires a biopsy or removal of the tumor by surgery, followed by examination by a pathologist.
* Surgical excision: the removal of a tumor by a surgeon.
o Surgical margins: the evaluation by a pathologist of the edges of the tissue removed by the surgeon to determine if the tumor was removed completely ("negative margins") or if tumor was left behind ("positive margins").
* Grade: a number (usually on a scale of 3) established by a pathologist to describe the degree of resemblance of the tumor to the surrounding benign tissue.
* Stage: a number (usually on a scale of 4) established by the oncologist to describe the degree of invasion of the body by the tumor.
* Recurrence: new tumors that appear at the site of the original tumor after surgery.
* Metastasis: new tumors that appear far from the original tumor.
* Median survival time: a period, often measured in months or years, over which 50% of the cancer patients are expected to be alive.[104]
* Transformation: the concept that a low-grade tumor transforms to a high-grade tumor over time. Example: Richter's transformation.
* Chemotherapy: treatment with drugs.
* Radiation therapy: treatment with radiations.
* Adjuvant therapy: treatment, either chemotherapy or radiation therapy, given after surgery to kill the remaining cancer cells.
* Neoadjuvant therapy: treatment either chemotherapy or radiation therapy, given before surgery to shrink a tumor to make its resection easier.
* Prognosis: the probability of cure/remission after the therapy. It is usually expressed as a probability of survival five years after diagnosis. Alternatively, it can be expressed as the number of years when 50% of the patients are still alive. Both numbers are derived from statistics accumulated with hundreds of similar patients to give a Kaplan-Meier curve.
* Cure: A cancer patient is "cured" or "in remission" if they live past the time by which 95% of treated patients live after the date of their diagnosis of cancer. This period varies among different types of cancer; for example, in the case of Hodgkin's disease this period is 10 years, whereas for Burkitt's lymphoma this period would be 1 year.[105] The phrase "cure" used in oncology is based upon the statistical concept of a median survival time and disease-free median survival time.[106]
No comments:

EXTERNAL LINKS - REFERENCES

Cancer at the Open Directory Project
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer"
No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

100+ MOST POPULAR BLOGS

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...