Document 9DYkD953vqNVK38pparj1awL

op/J>' \ jp\ ^ff/h Cancer and lifestyle in ouisiana q OlcVjtv 'WVQvtcS Soc PEIAYO CORREA, MD WILLIAM D. JOHNSON, MS New Orleans y| A he cancer maps published By the National Cancer Institute have given Louisiana the dubious distinction of displaying some of the highest cancer rates in the nation.1, * This excess is only tijue for males, is mostly concentrated in the southern portion of the state and is especially prominent for the respiratory organs. Ageadjusted death rates for respiratory cancer in white males for 1950-1968 have been calculated for each of the 3,056 counties of the United States. The top 18 in that list include the following 10 Louisiana parishes: St. Bernard, Tensas, .Terrebone, Cancordia, Orleans, Jefferson, Ibe ria, St. Martin, Evangeline and St. Charles.2 More recent data on death rates for Louisiana parishes (prepared by Thomas Ballinger, Department: of Health and Human Resources) show the following rank order for the parishes with highest lung cancer death rates in white males, 1960-1978: Evangeline, West darroll, Bossier, St. Ber nard, Assumption. Acadia, St. Martin, Richland, Tensas, JIberia, Franklin, Terrebone, St. Mary, St. Tammany, Washington and Orleans. Lifestyle is one of the factors suspected to be linked with cancer causation. The rural north of Louisiana has respiratory cancer rates which are approximately half of those of the more industrializedjsouth. As a first approx imation to investigate the possible link between cancer risk and lifestyle, we conducted ji survey in four southern and five northern Louisiana parishes whose death rates from respiratory cancer are sho^jim in Table 1. A fandom sample of ail males over 30 years ofage was selected from From the Department of Pathology end BiometfyT Louisiana Stale University Medical Center, New Orleans, La. I holders of driver's licenses with addresses in the parishes selected. With the help of the American Cancer Society volunteers, a questionnaire was mailed to them inquiring about their lifestyle. The positive results are summarized in Table 2. All responses to the questionnaire are ex pressed in terms of the age-adjusted percent of the re- TABLE 1 AGE-ADJUSTED MALE DEATH RATES PER 100,000 FOR RESPIRATORY CANCER FOR 1950-1969 IN SELECTED PARISHES FROM NORTH AND . SOUTH LOUISIANA* Iberia Lafourche St. Martin Terrebone Average Bienville Natchitoches Red River Sabine Winn Average : 1 , South White 62 58 61 69 63 North 35 32 37 23 33 32 i Black 42 53 53 41 .47 10 19 10 .19 126 <17 ` 'i| spohdents for each race-location category. Responses re lated to foods and drinks showing any inter-groups differ ence are shown in Table 3. i , Qur results Indicate that the differences in th4 lifestyle of residents of areas with contrasting lung cancer risks in 15, nL March 1983 - Vol. 135 ir:' URL 04316 l 39 LOUICIANA/TI fSI i ?Tl/3 1 CANCEh/TI AND LIFESTYLE/TI AND LQUISIANA/TI 1/3/1 1032869 83187869 Cancer and lifestyle m Louisiana. Correa P; Johnson WD J La State Hed Sc-: (UNITED STATES) 0024-6921 Journal Code: IVK 7L0G0FF 11 ju!85 11:59:4s 5Jser003l77 , tO.32 0,009 Hrs Filel54 , 40.09 Tymnet ' 40.42 Estimated cosy this file i ! $0.54 Estimated total session cost ; / Logoff: level 5.7.U 31:59:45 / / { TYMNET: call cleared oy request 9 \ j please log in: ,Mar 1983, 0.011 Hrs. 135 (3) p4-6, ISSN Lv?>0'w