Tag: Lung Cancer

A Conversation About Cancer Rates in Appalachia

Rural Appalachia has some of the highest cancer mortality rates in the country — up to 36 percent higher than what is seen elsewhere. The culprit? That’s a multi-fold answer. Kara Lofton talked about cancer rates in Appalachia with freelance reporter Lyndsey Gilpin, who wrote a story addressing the discrepancy. Data journalism website FiveThirtyEight published the story earlier this month.

In one of the opening paragraphs of the article you write: “In rural Appalachian Kentucky, the cancer mortality rate is 36 percent higher than it is for urban, non-Appalachian people in the rest of the country; in rural Appalachian Virginia it is 15 percent higher; in those areas of West Virginia, 19 percent. Those are pretty stunning statistics. What is going on in rural Appalachia to make cancer rates so much higher here?

 

It’s really because of this perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances. You have a rural population with very high obesity rates, high rates of smoking, really high poverty rate, a  high unemployment rate and then you have a lack of education. And then on top of that you have the health care side of things with lack of access to preventive care and lack of access to really good treatment. 

You also write that “[p]eople in much of rural Appalachia are more likely to die within three to five years of their diagnoses than those in both urban Appalachian areas and urban areas across the U.S. Why is that?

 

That’s primarily because of this lack of access we’re talking about. And even when people can get care they have to drive farther and wait longer and perhaps not have access to advanced clinical trials or really great health care systems hospitals – things like that – that can provide them with the best kind of available resources for the best outcomes and survival rates. 

 

Preventive screenings are one of the best tools we have to catch cancer early. What role does access to preventive services – or access to care at all – have on cancer rates in Appalachia?

Preventive care is perhaps the biggest piece of this puzzle. From everyone I talked to it seemed like that was the part they are trying to fix and it could be the most immediate fix. And so a lot of the cancers they focused on were preventable cancers. So breast cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer and cervical cancer. There are a lot of barriers to get to the point when they can access something as easy as a screening.

You mention in the article that economic, social and environmental factors also play a role in cancer incidence. What is going on in rural Appalachia that is different from the rest of the country?

 

Lifestyle is a big part of it, but lifestyle factors have a lot to do with the economics and the social and environmental factors. So obviously this isn’t new to anyone I talked to in Appalachia. Poverty and the decline of the coal mining industry have a very real effect on specific health care outcomes.

 

Appalachia is well known as a hub for commercial coal production. Is coal mining causing higher cancer rates?

It’s not as clear as that. We can’t draw the direct connection between coal pollution in cancer. Almost everyone I spoke to that was living in eastern Kentucky talked about the fact that they were leery about water contamination  and its relationship with cancer or other chronic illnesses, but if you look at the research there’s not enough to prove that link. There is research that shows mortality and chronic illnesses are higher in coal producing counties. 

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.

New COPD Clinic Opens In Lincoln County

Today marked the ribbon cutting ceremony for a pulmonary rehabilitation center in Lincoln County. Named after Grace Anne Dorney – a COPD patient and wife of longtime Nightline anchor Ted Koppel – the new clinic will provide exercise, education and support to help patients learn to breathe better.

Advocates for the program call it “life changing” and working to open new centers around the state.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, affects more than 10 percent of West Virginians. It is the third leading cause of death in the United States.

Despite the high numbers, few programs exist to help rehabilitate COPD patients.This is the fourth Grace Anne Dorney Center in West Virginia. The others are at Cabin Creek Health, New River Health, and Boone Memorial Hospital.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.

Strategic Plan Released for Reducing West Virginia Cancer Rates

The West Virginia cancer coalition Mountains of Hope released a five-year strategic plan for reducing the impact of cancer the state. Its goal is to create a centralized framework that collaborating health care practitioners, policymakers and advocates can follow to reduce cancer rates in the state.

More than 11,000 West Virginians are diagnosed with cancer each year, and almost 5,000 die from cancer-related diseases, according to the WV Cancer Registry. Behind heart disease, cancer is the second leading cause of death in the state. Lung, prostate, breast and colorectal cancer account for more than half of all cases.

The new plan includes five overarching goals of prevention — early detection, treatment, improving the quality of life of patients and achieving health equity. Specifically, the plan calls for increasing screening rates, improving access to healthy foods, increasing physical activity and reducing smoking rates in West Virginia.

Mountains of Hope Cancer Coalition includes more than 200 organizations ranging cancer societies to universities to state agencies. They hope to achieve all goals outlined in the plan by the year 2020. What will it cost and what is the funding mechanism?

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.

Research Breakthrough Could Improve Lung Cancer Outcomes

A team of West Virginia scientists have made a breakthrough in cancer research that could improve the results patients see from lung cancer treatments.

Scientists from the West Virginia University Cancer Institute and the Morgantown-based bio-analytic technology company Protea say they’ve identified changes that occur at the molecular level in lung cancer cells. Those changes may make the cells resistant to cancer-fighting drugs, something researchers say can be a common problem among cancer patients.

The WVU-Protea team tracked how actively cancerous tumor cells changed while undergoing treatment and were ultimately able to determine when a tumor began to be resistant to medications.

In a news release, Protea Biosciences says the earlier doctors can detect resistence in these cells, the sooner a patient can be switched to another treatment or drug, increasing the patient’s chances of being cured.

Further studies are planned to validate the findings. If successful, it may help improve lung cancer treatment outcomes.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.

Free Radon Testing Kits Available to North Carolina Residents

Free radon testing kits are now available to all 100 North Carolina counties, according to a press release earlier this week.

The kits are available through the NC Radon Program, which is administered by the Department of Health and Human Services. Officials are distributing the kits through county health departments, although the press release noted supplies are limited.

“Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S. among non-smokers and, for no cost, citizens can test their homes and protect themselves and their loved ones,” says Mark Payne, Assistant Secretary of Audit and Health Service Regulation in a written statement.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, radon is a naturally occurring, radioactive gas that is invisible, odorless and tasteless. Radon is released from the ground into outdoor air, but it can accumulate and reach harmful levels when trapped in homes and other buildings. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that radon is responsible for more than 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year in the United States.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.

CAMC Launches Lung Cancer Screening Program

  In an effort to catch lung cancer earlier and in more people, Charleston Area Medical Center (CAMC) has begun a lung cancer screening program. Lung cancer is the most prevalent type of cancer in West Virginia, according to the West Virginia Cancer Registry.

Screening includes a low-dose CT scan, a service covered by Medicare, and access to smoking cessation resources.

“It’s not as simple as just doing a CT scan,” CAMC public relations officer Dale Witte wrote in an email. Other components of the program include smoking cessation education, follow-up with a nurse navigator, and the submission of screening results to an American College of Radiology registry. The submission of screening data is a Medicare requirement for continued funding and for tracking the efficacy of the program.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services approved payment for low-dose CT scans for lung cancer screening earlier this year. The screening costs $99 to those not covered by insurance.

Patients are required to have a doctor’s order for screening and may have to meet other criteria such as age and smoking history in order to qualify.

West Virginia has the second highest lung cancer rate in the country, according to 2012 data from the West Virginia Department for Health and Human Resources. Recent studies, including one from the National Cancer Institute in 2010, have found low-dose helical CT scans were 15-20 percent more effective than standard chest X-rays in detecting cancer early.

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