The State Health Registry of Iowa is releasing its predictions of new cancer cases and cancer deaths statewide for the year ahead. The Registry, based at the University of Iowa College of Public Health, estimates 14-thousand-700 Iowans will be diagnosed with cancer this year and 64-hundred will die from it. Registry medical director Doctor Charles Lynch says that’s about the same as last year and isn’t a big surprise. Lynch, a professor of epidemiology at the U-of-I, says cancer cases and deaths rose during the 1970s and 80s, so he says the current stable numbers and slight declines are welcome. Doctor Lynch says the sexes face slightly different threats. Cancer remains the second leading cause of death in Iowa, behind heart disease. For men, the most lethal cancers are lung, colorectal and prostate, while for women, they’re breast, colorectal and lung. Lynch says he’d like to see more promotion of colorectal screenings as the sooner the disease is discovered, the better the patient’s chance for survival. More than 150 hospitals, clinics and medical laboratories across Iowa, as well as referral facilities in neighboring states, contribute data to the State Health Registry. There are four major screening tests available but a survey found over 50-percent of Iowans have never had any exams.Colorectal cancer is projected this year to be diagnosed in Iowa in 11-hundred women and one-thousand men, and to be the cause of 390 deaths in women and 350 deaths in men. Iowans were diagnosed with nearly 58-thousand-800 colorectal cancers between 1973 and 2000, and more than 23-thousand-500 Iowans died from the disease during those years.
