Cancer

I did a little research about the subject of death and cancer. I have some statistics on cancer survival rates today. These come from the National Cancer Institute and are on U.S. patients only. Here are the percentages of people who survive (are cured) the various forms of cancer. A person is considered cured when he or she is still alive five years after a cancer diagnosis. From most curable to least curable these are based on the years 1995-2000.
Cancer Type Percentage cured
1) Prostate- 99% 2) Thyroid- 97% 3) Testicular- 96% 4) Melanoma- 91% 5) Breast- 88% 6) Uterine corpus- 85% 7) Urinary bladder- 82% 8) Uterine cervical- 73% 9) Laryngeal- 65% 10) Kidney- 64% 11) Colorectal- 63% 12) Ovarian- 44% 13) Stomach- 23% 14) Lung/bronchus- 15% 15) Esophageal- 14% 16) Liver- 8% 17) Pancreatic- 4%
These figures are for five year survivals. Some 5 year survivors do develop the same cancer or another, and some pass away. But for the most part, a 5 year cancer free patient will live many more years beyond, often dying of "natural causes".
The total death rate for the 5 most deadly cancers in the year 2005 is projected to be:
1) Lung /bronchus- 164,000 Americans will die of this type, the most of any form of cancer. And 85% will be smokers. That means stopping or never smoking would save the majority of these victims. 2) Colorectal - 56,000 deaths 3) Breast- 40,000 deaths 4) Pancreatic- 32,000 deaths 5) Ovarian- 16,000 deaths
And after looking at the survival rates and the instances of cancers what would you think is the most funded cancer research? Logically, it would be Lung cancer, which has the largest death rates from cancer and is only 15% curable. Or it would be pancreatic cancer which has only a 4% survival rate and is the fourth most common cause of death from cancer.
But they are not even close to the money winner. It is the high profile breast cancer that receives the most research funding, more than twice as much as any of the other cancers. But then, .there is quite the profit in breast cancer prevention and little preventive measures for lung cancer (except not smoking) and pancreatic cancer from which to garner extra profit. So all cancer isn't equal, in prevalence, in severity and in how much effort is put into preventing and curing them.