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Show American CancerCrusade emphasises early diagnosis The early diagnosis of cancer in many people, particularly among lower socio-economic groups, is being missed due to shortcomings short-comings in the delivery of health care and education. "A major goal facing the American Cancer Society is to devise and carry out programs for the earlier detection of cancer in these groups", Lou Szepi, Chairman of the Society's 1978 educational and fund raising crusade in Cedar City, said. "For example, cancer is often diagnosed at a later stage of the disease in blacks and therefore they have less favorable survival rates", said Szepi. According to National Cancer Institute figures the percentage of cancers diagnosed in a localized stage was 38 help cut down the time before the diagnosis of cancer among all people", the ACS spokesman said. The prospects of survival for cancer patients depends on the site of the tumor and the extent of its spread at diagnosis. Patients with localized cancer have the best survival rates as opposed op-posed to those which have spread to lymph nodes, adjacent organs and tissue. For example when bladder cancer is localized there is a 71 percent five year survival rate compared to only 21 percent if it has spread. For colon cancer the five year survival rate is 73 percent if localized but only 42 percent when it has spread, Szepi noted. "Early detection is therefore often a matter of life and death," he said. "Increased attention must be given to the high risk groups in our population. More research is needed for the development of more effective screening and diagnostic techniques," he declared. All of this of course needs the support of everyone who wants to wipe out cancer in our lifetime." percent for whites compared to 32 percent in blacks, he said. The net result is that cancer death rates are much higher among blacks per 100,000 population than among whites. "One thing we can do through expanded educational programs, is to |