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Cancer in American
In modern society cancer is the disease most feared by the majority of
people throughout the world, supplanting the "white death," or tuberculosis,
of the last century; the "black death," or bubonic plague, of the Middle
Ages; and the leprosy of biblical times. Cancer has been known and
described throughout history, although its greater prevalence today is
undoubtedly due to the conquest by medical science of most infectious
diseases and to the increased life span of humans. The study of cancer is
known as the field of ONCOLOGY. In the mid-1980s nearly 6 million new
cancer cases and more than 4 million deaths from cancer were being reported
world-wide each year. The most common fatal form was stomach cancer
(prevalent in Asia), but lung cancer has risen rapidly, because of the
spread of cigarette smoking in developing countries, to become the leading
fatal cancer in the world today. Also on the increase is the third-
greatest killer, breast cancer, particularly in China and Japan. The
fourth on the list is colon or rectum cancer, a disease that mainly strikes
the elderly. In the United States in the mid-1980s, more than one-fifth of
all deaths were caused by cancer; only the cardiovascular diseases
accounted for a higher percentage. In 1990 the American Cancer Society
predicted that about 30 percent of Americans will eventually develop some
form of the disease. In the United States skin cancer is the most
prevalent cancer in both men and women. Lung cancer, however, causes the
most deaths in both men and women. LEUKEMIA, or cancer of the blood, is
the most common type seen in children. An increasing incidence of cancer
has been clearly observable over the past few decades, due in part to
improved cancer screening programs, to the increasing number of older
persons in the population, and also to the large number of tobacco smokers-
-particularly among women. Some researchers have estimated that if
Americans stopped smoking cigarettes, lung-cancer deaths could virtually be
eliminated within 20 years.
ADDITIONAL FEATURED ESSAYS
The Dangers Of Smoking
Smoking is the most important single preventable cause of illness and premature death in North America. In the United St
Effects Of Smoking 2
Smoking has many side effects many of these effects being serious life altering side effects and not simply cosmetic. Th
The Best Way To Support Health Care
The avarage life expectency in U.S. is 70 years of age, which is many years compared to some dacades before. Some of the
History Of The Prostate Gland
The prostate is a gland that is located just underneath the bladder. It surrounds the urethra through which a man urin
Breast Cancer Treatment
Only lung cancer kills more women each year in the United States than breast cancer does. The American Cancer Society (A
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