Lung Cancer Alliance Calls American Cancer Society's Claim of Progress Selective

Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA) said that the American Cancer Society's claim of "progress in cancer fight" earlier this week was based on "selective culling of statistics and ignores the dismal truth that we have made very little progress on the most lethal cancers, including lung cancer, which causes one in every two cancer deaths, or in metastatic cancer of any kind."

LCA President & CEO Laurie Fenton Ambrose agreed that progress has been made with certain cancers such as breast, prostate and colon which have widely accepted screening tests for early detection and ACS deserves credit for promulgating information to the public on the importance of these tests.

"But this is not time to be celebrating when half of all cancers still have survival rates of less than 50% and when we are facing a 45% increase in the overall number of new cancer cases by the year 2030," she said, citing a recent report on the upcoming tidal wave in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

"There could be no stronger wake-up call," she said. "We can't continue to tout selected changes in incidence and mortality rates over a limited number of cancers over a limited period of time. We have to step back and look at the big picture and try to figure out why we have not done better and where we have to go from here."

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Dr. West of GRACE says, Hats off to Bonnie J. Addario: Reaching out to Oprah in a BIG Way

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Top NC advocate of smoking ban has lung surgery

The powerful state House Democratic leader who drove the Legislature to pass a statewide indoor smoking ban had surgery Tuesday to remove part of his lung, his legislative aide said.

House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman, D-Davidson, had surgery at Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem and was recovering in the hospital's intensive care unit, his legislative assistant, Carol Bowers, said after speaking with the legislator's wife, Ellen.

Holliman had a lower lobe of his right lung removed, Bowers said. Test results will determine later whether the removed section was cancerous, Bowers said. He was in stable condition Tuesday, hospital spokeswoman Freda Springs said.

Holliman, a former smoker, previously had a cancerous tumor removed from his lung in September 2007. He also was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1999, but declared himself cured in 2005.

Holliman's surgery came a week after he was collecting plaudits from Gov. Beverly Perdue as the driving force behind legislation that will ban smoking inside restaurants and bars when it takes effect in January. Perdue called the law a turning point for the state that remains the country's largest tobacco grower.

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The State reports: SC legislators try to end shortened session

South Carolina legislators appear to be heading home without final deals worked out on big issues.

Thursday's adjournment will come with no final agreements on raising the state's cigarette tax and there's little expectation the Senate will be able to move a bill adding new restrictions to the state's payday lending industry.

The Legislature set a 5 p.m. deadline to adjourn. That's two weeks earlier than usual and comes after the House and Senate both took several weeks off without pay to save money.

That's left a last-minute scramble to deal with legislation. The Senate has to deal with 30 budget vetoes.

Lawmakers will return briefly in June to deal with vetoes. They've also allowed themselves the option of coming back to deal with budget problems later in the year.

The State reports: Isotope shortage could delay cancer tests

Canadian officials have again shut down a nuclear reactor that produces much of the world's radioactive isotopes used to diagnose cancer patients through medical imaging.

Patients in line for medical tests to diagnose cancer and heart ailments may have a longer wait as hospitals try to conserve a scarce supply of isotopes, doctors say.

The latest shutdown of an Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. nuclear reactor at Chalk River, Ontario - which provides about half the global supply of isotopes used in medical imaging - is expected to last about a month as technicians repair a leak of heavy water.

Government-owned AECL said Tuesday it has enough medical isotopes for the coming week, but will unable to meet demand by Saturday.

The AECL said its NRU reactor was shut down last Thursday after a power outage. The leak was discovered shortly after that.

The 52-year-old reactor was ordered closed by Canada's nuclear regulator in 2007 until mandated safety upgrades had been completed. The nearly monthlong shutdown that resulted sparked a critical global shortage of medical isotopes used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and heart ailments, and only ended when Canada's Parliament voted to bypass the regulator's order.

Another lengthy shortage will force hospitals to delay non-urgent tests, said Dr. Karen Gulenchyn, a nuclear medicine expert who helped advise former Canadian health minister Tony Clement during the last isotope shortage in December 2007.

"It may mean that if you have an elective study booked ... that patient is going to be deferred and have to wait until the situation is resolved," she said.

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