[Impulse]

Cancer in recent years has become a most prevalent illness. With myriad forms of the disease affecting millions, it's agreed upon that a means of eradicating it must be developed. However with the number of affected persons on the rise, a particular ilk has been more prominent than the rest: Breast cancer.

Research shows the number of women in the US afflicted by Breast cancer:

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About 1 in 8 (12%) women in the US will develop invasive breast cancer during their lifetime.

What's even more unfortunate is this statistic, which is an estimated calculation of women who survive developed Breast cancer:

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3,131,440 (41%)

Considering that nine percent less than half of women who develop breast cancer actually live to see their later years, one could comprehend the hysteria that surrounds it, as well as all its solemnities. Even though the survival rate is below half, the number can be seen as a beacon of hope for women who develop the disease. Surely this number is flaunted right along with the 1 in 8 statistic(which you'd see on any site related to breast cancer) right?

Wrong. In fact, while we're at it, let's take a look at the survival rates for men and women who develop a few lesser publicized forms of cancer:

Men:

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Prostate
2,975,970 (43%)

Colon & rectum
621,430 (9%)

Melanoma
516,570 (8%)

Women:

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Uterine corpus
624,890 (8%)

Colon & rectum
624,340 (8%)

According to these statistics, excluding prostate cancer, you are less likely to survive other types of cancers by over 33%. This massive gap is alarming, if not terrifying. What these numbers raise are a few questions however. Why aren't these much more lethal forms of cancer being given the identical amount of attention as breast cancer; if there isn't a bias towards breast cancer, why is prostate cancer, a form of the disease with an almost identical survival rate not being administered the same treatment?

Susan G. Komen.

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By Dr. Mercola

In the United States, virtually everyone has seen the "pink ribbon" campaigns plastered on everything from make-up and cupcakes to t-shirts and fried chicken buckets, and recognize the symbol as a sign of breast cancer awareness.

It's certainly a noble cause, considering that if current trends continue one in 8 U.S. women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point during their lives.

Unfortunately, this cause is noble only in appearance; in reality, the multimillion-dollar company behind all those pink ribbons -- the Susan G. Komen Foundation – uses less than a dime of each dollar to actually look for a breast cancer cure... and that's just the surface of the problem...

The campaign to "raise awareness" for breast cancer, orchestrated by the Susan G. Komen foundation, has deemed other forms of cancer secondary to the one it supports. I use the word "support" loosely, as the ulterior motives behind the owners of the company lie within the deceptive trends they devise. The under-handed dealings of the company speak for itself when the question is asked: Do they truly care about breast cancer?

The deceptive concoction of "raising awareness" is a bold lie; a fib, masquerading in a pink ribbon, plastered on any and everything it has the fortune of getting its taint on.

I told myself this was the explanation, however, we've been witness to the sensationalization of other "issues", such as domestic violence, rape, and perceived injustices. Thoughts?

[Texas_Tryhard]

(02-01-2015 10:03 PM)Impulse Wrote:  

Stuff

While I agree that breast cancer definitely gets more than its fair share of screen time, and I think that raising "awareness" at this point is pretty stupid (who the fuck hasn't heard of breast cancer?), you're ignoring the incidence rates. I'm going to use my numbers (I haven't verified the accuracy of your numbers, I think they're wrong, so please post a source. A basic search of the SEER database shows vastly different numbers for colon cancer and breast cancer, as well as the others). I will thus be using the SEER database numbers. However, even if I were to use your numbers, the below would be true:

If 12.3% of women get breast cancer, and the 5-year survival rate is 89.2%, that means 1.32% of women will die from breast cancer. Since women are ~50% of the population, this implies 0.66% of the population will die of breast cancer. That's pretty serious, especially since we're not even talking about the struggles of the majority (cancer patients/survivors) who get it. Breast cancer is the second most diagnosed form of cancer.

Prostate cancer is immensely treatable. It has a 5-year survival rate of 98.9%.

Now let's look at colon cancer. It's a shitty goddamn disease, no doubt about it. For diagnostic reasons, it's rarely detected/detectable (unlike breast cancer which can oftentimes be felt) and early symptoms aren't very specific to colon cancer, so it's often caught at much later stages and thus is much more deadly. 4.7% of men and women will acquire colon cancer in their lifetime, and at a 5-year survival rate of 64.7%, 1.7% of people will die from colon cancer. Higher than the percentage of breast cancer, but with a lower incidence. Colon cancer is probably ripe to be targeted for a diagnostic campaign next. I imagine regular colonoscopies will be suggested to catch this disease earlier.

Not sure where you got your melanoma statistic but melanoma is known to be easily treated/treatable in most cases and is usually quite easy to detect. With 91.3% 5-year overall survival, and only 2.1% of the population getting it, this shouldn't be on the chart.

Endometrial cancer has a 81.5% 5-year overall survival rate and a 2.7% incidence rate in women, meaning 0.50% of women or 0.25% of the population will die from it.

Basically, I'm just saying that because breast cancer is so common, it's statistically dubious to only look at survival rates. The number of patients who die from each cancer per year, which reflects both incidence rate and survival rate, is a much better statistic to use when "ranking" cancer in terms of its importance. The below chart seems to suggest that lung cancer deserves the most attention, with colon cancer a second and breast third. Given that the incidence and severity of both lung and colon cancer is greatly affected by smoking cigarettes, if our goal is to "raise awareness" more and prevent as many cancer cases/deaths as possible, the current campaigning to prevent smoking should be amplified. But breast cancer still deserves focus.