Lung cancer survival in Louisiana suggests that it may often not be detected.Healthcare / hospital

Residents of Louisiana with lung cancer are more likely to die of lung cancer than people in most other states, statistics researchers say the disease, as well as high smoking and pollution rates in Louisiana. It states that it may have something to do with the disastrous record of detection.

In a report this month, the American Lung Association said that Louisiana’s survival rate for lung cancer after five years was 18.1%, with more than four in five people suffering from the disease dying soon. Of the 47 states that provided the data, only Mississippi and Alabama are worse than Louisiana. The average survival rate in the United States is 22.6%.

Although the incidence of lung cancer has made significant improvements in treatment in recent years, it remains a brutal murderer. Lung cancer still accounts for almost 25% of all cancer deaths in the United States, far exceeding breast and prostate cancer deaths, despite high infection rates.

Dr. Mark Side, a lung cancer researcher and oncologist at the University of Tulane, said that if detected early, doctors can often treat it by removing the tumor and cancerous tissue from the lungs.

“If you detect it early, you can get rid of the disease,” he said. But the problem is that Luizianas are much more likely to have no cancer detected until late in the disease, when survival plummets to 6%.

According to the report, only 2.8% of patients who meet screening recommendations get one in the state, well below the national average of 5.7%.

“Many of the patients here have the feeling that if they don’t have a diagnosis of lung cancer, they don’t have lung cancer,” Sides said. “There is a lot of resistance to medical screening. That should be the opposite.”

According to the American Lung Association, screening can reduce lung cancer mortality by 20%. That would reduce the estimated 2,330 deaths predicted by the American Cancer Society in Louisiana this year by about 466.

Louisiana, home to an area known as a cancer alley along the Mississippi River for its high incidence of cancer, has both pollution and high smoking rates that blame the high incidence of cancer, Sides said. Said other researchers.

About one in five adults in the state is a smoker, about 20% of the total US 15.5%, and the state spends very little on prevention.

Of the $ 450 million annually received on tobacco taxes and payments from a master settlement contract signed with a tobacco company over 20 years ago, only $ 13 million is spent annually on tobacco control. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that the state spend $ 60 million to discourage smoking.

Louisiana is still lagging behind other states, but has made some progress in improving survival over the last five years.

According to the report, state survival has increased by 14% since 2015. Nationwide, it has increased by 25%. Proponents, helped by the expansion of Medicaid in Louisiana, attribute improvement to early screening. However, they are worried that COVID-19 may reverse the progression.

“The reason for the increased survival is an increase in early diagnosis,” said Christine O’Brien, a member of the Southeastern Regional Board of the Lung Association and Secretary-General of UnitedHealth Care.

“What we found at COVID is that not only are people receiving preventive care, but they are still delaying care when other symptoms begin to appear. I am primary to people. We encourage you to try a care visit. If you are hesitant to actually enter the health care system, use telemedicine. “

Sides tells medical students that prevention is the best way to treat most illnesses.

“The best way to treat a gunshot wound is to prevent the patient from being shot,” says Sides. “The best way to treat lung cancer (more than 85% is due to smoking) is to quit smoking.”

He said vaping is not a safe alternative.

Pollution is also a cause, and catastrophic events such as hurricanes add to the danger. Side points to floods throughout Katrina as an example.

“Various exposures in the city may have contributed to some of what we’re seeing in this,” Sides said. “All the chemicals that are normally isolated are now in the flood, are aerosolized, and all emit gas.”

Besides prevention, early screening can detect surgically treatable lung cancer.

Those who are 55-80 years old, who smoked 1 pack per day for 30 years (or 2 packs per day for 15 years), who are currently smoking, or who have quit smoking within the last 15 years are required to be screened. ..

People who do not detect lung cancer may have symptoms that indicate recurrent pneumonia. Lung cancer often restricts air flow, like a stagnant stream, Sides said.

“If you go through the countryside of Louisiana, see a beautiful stream of clean water and know that there are crayfish, it’s healthy,” Sides said. “And you look at the cow pond and nothing is moving. The same is true for the lungs.”

Emily Woodruff covers the public health of Times Picayune | New Orleans advocates as a report for members of the US Corps.