Imagine that a family friend or colleague has just been diagnosed with cancer. Explain how the American Cancer Society might provide education and support. What ACS services would you recommend and why?
It sadly is not something we have to imagine as I think most of us have had this happen. I lost my mother to cancer when I was 7 years old, she was 52 when she lost her battle with this nasty disease. The American Cancer Society (ACS) has many programs to help the patient with support. ACS offers programs like Patient Navigator Program which offers personalized support to help patients stay on track with treatments as they can become overwhelming fast, Hope Lodge a program that assist with lodging for families when treatment takes them out of town too far, and the Look Good Feel Better program that helps patients with the physical changes that treatment creates on their bodies. ACS also offers the Cancer Resource Center and Cancer Survivor Network to educate the patients on what is happening to them and the best ways to cope (American Cancer Society, 2015). I would recommend all of these programs because the more support and knowledge a patient has on what is physiologically happening to them the better prepared they are to fight.
2. According to statistics published by the American Cancer Society, there will be an estimated 1.5 million new cancer cases diagnosed each year over the next decade. What factors contribute to the yearly incidence and mortality rates of various cancers in Americans? What changes in policy and practice are most likely to affect these figures over time?
Cancer is one of those equal opportunity diseases. Sometimes a person can live a clean and healthy life and still be diagnosed with cancer. Many times people are genetically predisposed to cancer. There are however factors that increase the risk of some cancers and they include:
· Smoking
· Diet
· Sedentary lifestyle
· Pollution
· Exposure to carcinogens like asbestos
· Radiation exposure
Education is a huge way to affect these figures. Armed with the knowledge that these things can increase your risk of a possibly fatal and/or life changing illness, surely people would choose to avoid them. Some factors like occupation exposure to radiation or carcinogens can be reduced by mandatory personal protective equipment and monitoring. Pollution or poor air quality due to environmental exposures can be mandated for proper clean up. In my town of Simi Valley we have a former Rocket Dyne site that tested jet engines for space shuttles among other things in the1970s. It was found after the site was closed that there was carcinogenic waste in the soil and water table in the hills below the site. The clean-up was just started last year in 2016, 40+ years later. Due to high rate of children with certain cancers in the area what spawned the testing and eventual removal of the site and pollutants.
3. Select a research program from among those funded by the American Cancer Society. Describe the program and discuss what impact the research will have on the prevention or treatment of cancer.
The ACS funds 160 grants for breast cancer research. Currently there is $62 million in effect for those grants. One of the grants funds a research program by Nikki Cheng PhD, University of Kansas Medical Center. Dr. Cheng is researching protein discovered in her lab called CCL2 and its role in breast cancer progression and relapse in hopes to develop more effective strategies to diagnose and treat invasive breast cancers (American Cancer Society, 2016).
References:
American Cancer Society. (2016). Extramural Grants. Retrieved from https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/cancer-org/research/extramural-grants-documents/grants-by-state/colorado-extramural-grants.pdf
American Cancer Center Society (2015).Find Support & Treatment. Retrieved from http://www.cancer.org/treament/index
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