Deaths from pancreatic cancer rise, fall along racial lines
Trends among whites and African Americans go in opposite directions
Pancreatic cancer death rates in whites and blacks have gone in opposite directions over the past several decades in the United States, with the direction reversing in each ethnicity during those years. The finding comes from a new study by American Cancer Society (ACS) researchers, who say the rising and falling rates are largely unexplainable by known risk factors, and who call for urgent action for a better understanding of the disease in order to curb increasing death rates. The study appears early online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Cancer of the pancreas remains one of the deadliest cancer types. It is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States, estimated to cause 38,460 deaths in the U.S. in 2013. While mortality from most other major cancers as well as from all cancers combined has been dropping for more than two decades, deaths from pancreatic cancer have been increasing in recent years. Cigarette smoking, obesity, and red and/or processed meat have been linked to the disease, but not much is known about its major causes. Other suspected lifestyle risk factors include low vegetable and fruit intake, physical inactivity, and alcohol consumption.