Cancer Over View

   Cancer is doubtless the most dreaded disease afflicting the human race today. Although deaths from cancer, the second most common killer in the United States are exceeded only by those from heart disease, cancer creates far greater fear in the sufferer than do coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, or chronic kidney failure-diseases that also take a heavy toll on life. Every two years cancer kills more Americans than the total number killed in the four most recent wars: World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. And every year cancer kills seven times the number of Americans killed in automobile accidents!

   More than 1.3 million new cases of cancer occur every year in the United States, Of these, 400,000 are skin cancers with a relatively low mortality, but for the remaining 900,000, the annual death rate is about 50 percent! Cancer of the lung accounts for the largest number of these deaths, among both men and women. For those who receive treatment, the results are often given in terms of five-year survival rates. Unfortunately, this often causes the victims to be haunted by fear that the cancer will recur.

   In spite of these  somber facts, though, the outlook for cancer victims has been steadily improving. The five-year survival rate has doubled in the last fifty years, and of saved by early diagnosis and prompt treatment. It one adds to this the fact that almost all lung cancers could be eliminated if tobacco smoking were abolished, the outlook for anyone dying from this disease is far less discouraging than it was just a few years ago.