Month: March 2015

U.S. cancer deaths continue to decline, a new report says. The overall cancer death rate dropped an average of 1.5% a year between 2002 and 2011. New cancer cases fell more slowly, an average of 0.5% per year, the report says. The declines in cancer deaths each year were 1.8% for men, 1.4% for women and 2% for children. The report was written by experts from the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries, the American Cancer Society, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. National Cancer Institute. The authors said the declines reflect earlier detection, prevention and improved treatments. Lung cancer rates are falling because fewer people smoke. Declines in breast and colon cancer deaths also are related to screening and prevention efforts. Prostate cancer deaths also are down, but experts are not sure why.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will increase its efforts to reduce excess use of antibiotics and the spread of bacteria that resist these drugs. The White House announced the effort March 27. The goal is to reduce infections with some of the most dangerous drug-resistant bacteria by 50% to 60% by 2020. The Medicare and Medicaid programs already have told hospitals to reduce excess use of antibiotics. They must develop these programs within 3 years or lose funding. The CDC will provide funds to help more states collect data on antibiotic-resistant infections. It also will encourage hospitals and health systems to send data on patterns of antibiotic use. The CDC now is supporting hospital pilot programs to improve prevention of infections with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. A program in Chicago cut one type of infection in half.

The longer you live past 90, the greater the odds that your genes are a big reason, researchers say in a new study. The study looked at thousands of groups of siblings in New England. In all of the groups, at least one person reached age 90. For people who lived to be 90, the odds that a sibling also reached 90 were about 70% higher than for an average person born around the same time. People who lived to age 95 were 3½ times as likely as the average person to have a sibling who reached that age. And those who made it to 100 had 9 times the normal chance of having a sibling who also reached 100. The genetic connection was even stronger for those who reached 105. Their odds of having a sibling who reached that age were 35 times normal. The Journal of Gerontology: Biological Sciences published the study. HealthDay News wrote about it March 26.

Men who are fit in middle age may have lower risks of some cancers in later years, a new study finds. The study included nearly 14,000 men who were part of a long-term health study. Their average age when the study began was 49. Nearly all were white. Men were given treadmill tests to assess their fitness. After the men turned 65, researchers looked at Medicare records to see who was diagnosed with cancer. On average, they looked at 6½ years of records for each man. Men who had the top fitness scores in middle age were 55% less likely to develop lung cancer than those who were least fit. They were 44% less likely to develop colorectal cancer. But they were 22% more likely than less fit men to be diagnosed with prostate cancer. The men who were most fit also had a 32% lower rate of death from lung, colorectal or prostate cancer.

Propping open a narrowed artery in the brain actually may lead to more strokes than giving medicines alone, a study has found. The study included 112 people. All of them had a stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA or mini-stroke) within the last 30 days. A mini-stroke causes stroke symptoms that last less than 24 hours. People in the study were randomly divided into 2 groups. Everyone received standard “blood thinner” medicines to prevent clots. One group also received angioplasty. This procedure used a tiny balloon to open a narrowed artery in the brain. Then the artery was propped open with a wire-mesh tube called a stent. In the next month, 24% of those who got stents had a stroke or TIA, compared with 10% of those who got medicines only. Nearly 9% of those who got stents had bleeding in the brain. About 5% died. Nobody in the medicine-only group had bleeding or died.