Medicine: Cancer: Up or Down?

At the American Cancer Society's annual meeting in Manhattan last week, Statistician E. Cuyler Hammond posed a question: "Are we batting our heads against a stone wall—an insurmountable barrier?" On the basis of crude figures he reported: "We are faced with a frustrating fact. Ten short years ago, 177,000 Americans died of cancer. This year it is estimated that 243,000 Americans will die of this disease."

Statistician Hammond (TIME, June 13) was quick to point out that a lot of cancer figures can be misleading. Up to 1930, some of the apparent increase was due to improvements in diagnosis and in the reporting system. Since 1930, the overall cancer death rate among males has risen from 115 to 146 per 100,000 in a year, but this is due almost entirely to the explosive increase in lung cancer; in other forms of cancer the rate is virtually unchanged. Among women, the cancer death rate has actually decreased, from 141 in 1930 to 133 in 1950.

Since cancer is mainly a disease of the second half of life (95% Of cases are among people over 35), Hammond made no bones about the growing problem: "In 1900 there were only 23 million Americans 35 years of age and over. Today there are 70 million. [In 1965] there will be 81 million, and [in 1975] at least 86 million. Thus no matter how successful the [cancer control] program may be, the magnitude of the problem will increase. If death rates continue at exactly the present level, the annual cancer death toll will rise to 288,000 within ten years.

What is worse, if lung-cancer death rates increase at the present tempo, 306,000 Americans will die of cancer in 1965. Can we prevent this from coming true?"

Statistician Hammond hopefully answered his own question: "One-third of all those who die of cancer could be saved by methods known to us now." If this is accomplished in the next ten years and lung cancer is controlled, only 173,000 will die in 1965. But, said Hammond, there is a big if: these lives can be saved only if physicians apply present knowledge with maximum effectiveness. And what doctors can do depends basically on what cancer victims do—how soon they go for examinations when they have suspicious symptoms, how soon they have an operation after it is recommended, and what kind of operation they agree to.

Other cancer facts and figures discussed at the meeting:

¶Cancer of the cervix is now curable in 75% of cases (some say 100%) when treated promptly after the first symptoms appear, but the actual cure rate now is closer to 40% because too many women ignore the early danger signals.