EthnicMajority

(UPI) The number of U.S. adults getting cancer screening tests is not meeting targets, especially among Asian and Hispanic Americans, federal health officials found.

A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, found in 2010, breast cancer screening rates were 72.4 percent, below the Healthy People 2020target of 81 percent; cervical cancer screening was 83 percent, below the target of 93 percent; and colorectal cancer screening was 58.6 percent, below the target of 70.5 percent.

Screening rates for all three cancers were significantly lower among Asians — 64.1 percent for breast cancer, 75.4 percent for cervical cancer and 46.9 percent for colorectal cancer — compared to other groups, the study found.

Hispanics were less likely to be screened for cervical cancer (78.7 percent) and colorectal cancer (46.5 percent, when compared with non-Hispanics at 83.8 percent and 59.9 percent, respectively, the report said.

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(MedicalXpress.com) A new study finds that while colorectal cancer mortality rates dropped in the most recent two decades for every stage in both African Americans and whites, the decreases were smaller for African Americans, particularly for distant stage disease. The authors say concerted efforts to prevent or detect colorectal cancer at earlier stages in blacks could improve worsening black-white disparities.

Before 1980, colorectal cancer mortality rates for African Americans were lower than those for whites. Since then, however, the pattern of CRC mortality rates has reversed and diverged, so that in 2007, the rate for African Americans was 44 percent higher than for whites. This worsening disparity in mortality rates coincided with the introduction and dissemination of screening and improved treatment for colorectal cancer.

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(Washington Informer) Prostate cancer continues to remain the leading cause of cancer in men in the United States. Over 30 thousand men are estimated to die of prostate cancer this year alone. Also, for reasons that are not completely understood, African-American men are 60% more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer and 2.5 times likely to die of the disease. The PSA test is a blood test that measures prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a protein produced by the prostate gland. An increase in the PSA level is often the only sign of early prostate cancer. The PSA test is also valuable in following patients after treatment.

A recent report published in The Annals of Internal Medicine by a U.S. Preventative Services Task Force Committee stated that PSA testing should no longer be performed routinely on men in the United States. The task force came to this decision based on studies performed in the United States and Europe suggesting that prostate cancer screening does not appear to improve survival in patients with this disease.

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(FoxNews) Few media stories on cancer venture into issues of death, dying and end-of-life care—and outlets directed at African Americans are particularly unlikely to do so, a new study suggests.

Historically, African Americans with advanced cancer have been more likely than whites to opt for aggressive treatment, and less likely to want hospice care.

The goal of hospice care is to improve quality of life for terminally ill people, treating their pain and other physical and psychological symptoms. There's also evidence that hospice care, which is usually provided at home, does not speed death—and in some cases, may help people live longer than aggressive cancer treatment would.

But doctors often don't bring up options for end-of-life care—even those caring for people with advanced cancer, said Jessica M. Fishman, the lead researcher on the new study.

Since people often get medical information from the media, Fishman and her colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia looked at whether there might be racial differences in how the media cover cancer care.

And they found that while few mainstream media stories talked about the downsides of aggressive cancer treatment, or about hospice care at all, African-American media were even less likely to do so.

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(PRNewswire) Racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to develop cancer and die from it than the general U.S. population. However, as the next generation of cancer medicines are being evaluated, only 17 percent of clinical trial participants are, in fact, minorities.(1)

Today, Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) announced findings from a prospectively designed observational study that resulted in new ways to increase minority participation in clinical trials. The study, released at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual "Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved" meeting in Washington, D.C., assessed the impact of ethnicity on the second-line treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

As part of Lilly's goal to improve health outcomes for all patients, the company is working to increase enrollment of diverse populations in clinical trials, and making trials more accessible in minority communities.

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(CNN) A new study may better explain why African American women have greater risk for developing more aggressive and difficult-to-treat forms of breast cancer, called estrogen and progesterone receptor negative cancers (ER-/PR-). The findings appear in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

Breast cancer is the second-most common type of cancer among women, after skin cancer. While white women are slightly more likely to get breast cancer than African American women, African American women are more likely to die from breast cancer, according to the American Cancer Society, because they are more likely to develop more aggressive breast cancers. But why this happens has been less clear.

Researchers at Boston University's Slone Epidemiology Center analyzed data from the Black Women's Health Study, which began in 1995 and follows 59,000 African American women who complete health questionnaires every two years.

From 1995 to 2009, 457 women developed estrogen and progesterone receptor positive cancers, ER+/PR+.

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(ABC Chicago) Will graphic new warning labels on cigarette packs help stem the rising number of Asian-Americans who are picking up the habit?

The Food and Drug Administration just released new cigarette warning labels which feature graphic pictures of the dangers of tobacco use.

In large immigrant communities, like Chinatown, smoking rates are well above the national average. Many smokers began their habit in Asian countries where smoking is more common, and because of language and cultural barriers, they find it difficult to find the support needed to quit.

They are illegal to sell in the United States, but that hasn’t kept Chinese cigarettes emblazoned with the symbol for good fortune from finding a large market in Chicago’s Chinatown. It’s part of the uphill battle faced by anti-smoking groups in that neighborhood.

“Our population is more socially isolated in an ethnic enclave. And so they don’t receive health messages through the mainstream media,” said Meme Wang, Asian Health Coalition.

A recent study commissioned by the Asian Health Coalition found that one in three men in Chinatown smokes, well above rates for Chicago and the nation.

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(Technorati) African Americans in the U.S. have the highest rates of death for most cancers even with an overall decrease in mortality. I know that’s confusing — it’s saying the percentages are higher in blacks than whites, but overall the rate of death has gone down. This is according to a 2010 American Cancer Society report on African Americans and cancer that was recently released. “African Americans are disproportionately represented in lower socioeconomic groups,” Otis Brawley, the chief medical offer of the American Cancer Society said. So poorer people overall have higher cancer death rates.

Compared to whites, death rates were 32 percent higher among African American men and 16 percent higher among African American women; the statistics are from 2007, the last year measured.

The most common form of cancer among African American males is prostate cancer at 40 percent of cases; 15 percent have lung cancer and 9 percent colon and rectal cancer.

For African American women, breast cancer is the most common, lung cancer is second with 13 percent, and 11 percent colon and rectal cancer.

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(Kansas City Star) It may take an Oprah-like TV personality to get people to turn away from bad eating and other habits to set the U.S. population on a healthier course.

The data for obesity, cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and heart disease don’t look good — particularly for African-Americans. The death rate for them is among the highest, with no sign of changes to prevent a premature demise.

But Mehmet Oz, a physician and host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” told the National Association of Black Journalists convention last month in San Diego that a change of strategy has to occur to get people to adopt healthier habits. Doctors, health care workers and government officials have to appeal to folks’ “feelings” instead of hitting them with mind-numbing data.

The numbers are a turnoff. People have to “turn on” to change because it “feels” like the right thing to do.

This was the second national black convention in a month to put health concerns at the top of the agenda. The first was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s meeting in Kansas City.

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(Private MD Labs) Black patients who receive a positive cancer test are almost twice as likely to die from their disease as other races, according to a new report from researchers at the University of Michigan.

The study found that the five-year survival rates for black patients with colorectal cancer are 10 percent lower. The numbers are worse when it comes to uterine cancer. Black women diagnosed with the disease are 25 percent more likely to die of it within five years.

Both of the cancers are highly treatable when they are caught in early stages, but can be deadly when left untreated, the report notes.

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