Cancer Surveillance Program releases new data
 W. Augustus Cheatham, MSW (right), introduces John Morgan, DrPH (left), and Alan King, MD, who released new data on cancer incidence and mortality during a press conference held Wednesday, April 25. |
While men in Inyo, Mono, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties now face a declining risk of cancer, the risk to women in the four-county region has remained constant in recent years, according to a reportof cancer incidence and mortality from 1988 to 1998 released by the Desert Sierra Cancer Surveillance Program (DSCSP) at a press conference held April 25.
Death from cervical cancer has risen among non-Hispanic white women while declining statewide--a troubling indicator given the screening tests available, according to researchers at Loma Linda University Cancer Institute, which operates DSCSP.
According to the report, the continuation of the unacceptably high overall risk of cancer among women in the region, the state, and the nation is the consequence of a failure by women to reduce cigarette smoking since the 1970s. However, women in the Desert Sierra region did exhibit a steady decline in the risk of colorectal cancer.
From 1994 to 1998, Desert Sierra men and women had higher age-adjusted incidence and mortality rates for lung and bronchus cancer than the statewide average. The Desert Sierra population also had higher mortality rates for all cancers combined, and for cancers originating in the colon, rectum, and kidney.
The annual report is the program's sixth on cancer incidence and the third on cancer mortality released for the four counties.
It uses data for new cancer cases added into the DSCSP active database prior to September 14, 2000, and deaths from cancer among residents of the region from 1988 to 1998.