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Louisiana residents who contract lung cancer are more likely to die from it than people in almost every other state, statistics researchers say, this could have as much to do with Louisiana’s dismal record of lung cancer. detection of the disease than with its high rates of smoking and pollution.
The American Lung Association said in a report this month that Louisiana’s five-year lung cancer survival rate is 18.1%, which means that more than four in five residents who contract the disease succumb to it quickly. Only Mississippi and Alabama are worse off than Louisiana among the 47 states that provided data. The average survival rate in the United States is 22.6%.
Lung cancer has one of the lowest five-year survival rates, as cases are often diagnosed at later stages when it is less likely to be cured. Louisiana has one of the worst survival rates in the country (45th out of 47 states that report data) at 18.1%:
Although lung cancer rates have dramatically improved treatments in recent years, it remains a brutal killer. Lung cancer still accounts for nearly 25% of all cancer deaths in the United States, far surpassing deaths from breast cancer and prostate cancer, despite their higher infection rates.
When discovered early, doctors can often treat it by removing tumor and cancerous tissue from the lungs, said Dr Mark Sides, a lung cancer researcher and oncologist at Tulane University.
“If we find it early, we can eliminate the disease,” he said. The problem, however, is that Louisianans are much more likely to have their cancer undetected until the late stage of the disease, when survival rates plunge to 6%.
Smoking at King Pin on Lyons Street., New Orleans, Wednesday, January 22, 2015 (Photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Only 2.8% of patients who meet screening recommendations get one in the state, well below the national average of 5.7%, according to the report.
“A lot of patients here have the feeling, ‘If I don’t have a diagnosis of lung cancer, I don’t have lung cancer,” “Sides said. “There is a lot of resistance to medical screenings. It should be the opposite.”
Screening could reduce the death rate from lung cancer by 20%, according to the American Lung Association. That would reduce the 2,330 deaths that the American Cancer Society is predicting this year for Louisiana by about 466.
Louisiana, home to the area known as the Cancer Alley along the Mississippi River for its high cancer rates, has both pollution and high smoking rates to blame for a higher incidence of cancer, said Sides and other researchers.
This article was produced in partnership with The Times-Picayune and The Advocate, who are members of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network.
About one in five adults in the state is a smoker, about 20%, compared to 15.5% in the United States, and the state spends little on prevention.
Of the $ 450 million it receives each year in cigarette taxes and payments under the Umbrella Settlement Agreement signed with tobacco companies more than two decades ago, only $ 13 million per year are spent on tobacco control efforts. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that the state spend $ 60 million to discourage smoking.
While Louisiana still lags behind other states, it has made strides in improving survival rates over the past five years.
According to the report, the state’s survival rate has increased 14% since 2015. Nationally, it has increased by 25%. Supporters attribute the improvements to early screenings, aided by the expansion of Medicaid in Louisiana. But they fear COVID-19 could reverse progress.
Louisiana spends only about $ 13 million a year on tobacco control, a fraction of what federal health officials and anti-smoking groups say:
“The reason the survival rate is increasing is an increase in early diagnosis,” said Christine O’Brien, member of the Southeastern Regional Council of the Lung Association and CEO of United Healthcare.
“What we’re seeing with COVID is that not only are people not getting preventative care, but when they start having other symptoms, they always delay care,” she said. “I would encourage people to try to get to primary care or use telehealth if they are reluctant to enter the health care system.
Sides tells his medical students that the best way to treat most illnesses is through prevention.
“The best way to treat a gunshot wound is to prevent patients from being shot,” Sides said. “The best way to treat lung cancer – over 85% is attributable to smoking – is to quit smoking.”
He said vaping was not a safe alternative.
Pollution is also a contributor, with destructive events like hurricanes adding to the dangers. Sides mentions the flooding during Katrina as an example.
When Nicholas Calico was suspended for three days from his high school in Mandeville for vaping, it didn’t convince him to stop.
“The different exhibits around the city could contribute to some of what we’re seeing with this,” Sides said. “All the chemicals that are normally sequestered are now in the flood water and are aerosolized and everything comes off.”
In addition to prevention, early detection can detect lung cancer which can be treated with surgery.
People who should get tested include those who are between 55 and 80 years old, who have smoked one pack a day for 30 years (or two packs a day for 15 years), who currently smoke, or have quit in the past 15 years. years.
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People with undetected lung cancer may have symptoms indicating recurrent pneumonia. Lung cancer often restricts airflow, like a moving flow that has become stagnant, Sides said.
“If you’ve been through the Louisiana countryside and see a beautiful stream with beautiful, clear water and you know there are crayfish, that’s healthy,” Sides said. “And then you see a cow pond and nothing is moving. It’s the same with the lungs.
Emily Woodruff covers public health for The Times-Picayune | New Orleans lawyer as a member of the Report For America corps
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