MaryAnn Bradley was bracing herself for a heart disease diagnosis when her cardiologist told her an X-ray showed a shadow on her right lung.
“I just thought I was going to die. That was it,” she said.
Bradley, now 68, had been pushing doctors to find out what was behind an unrelenting pain in the left side of her neck.
The St. Catharines, Ont., woman was “completely devastated” to learn she had stage 1 lung cancer, especially because her father had died of the disease years before.
A few weeks later, a thoracic surgeon removed the tumour.
“Everything went fantastically well,” Bradley said.
She’s been cancer-free for 10 years now, and goes back for CT scans to make sure it’s caught early if it ever returns.
“I had a great recovery and I’ve never looked back,” said Bradley, who now advocates for early detection of lung cancer and volunteers with Lung Cancer Canada as a peer mentor for others who get the diagnosis.
An annual report on cancer statistics released Wednesday says more people with lung cancer are surviving like Bradley.
Lung cancer death rates are declining faster than any other type of cancer in this country, according to Canadian Cancer Statistics 2023, which is compiled by the Canadian Cancer Statistics Advisory Committee, along with the Canadian Cancer Society, Statistics Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Lung cancer death rates have decreased by 4.3 per cent per year since 2014 for males and 4.1 per cent per year since 2016 for females, the report says.
“To me, this finding really highlights the progress that has been made in reducing lung cancer incidence through commercial tobacco control,” said Jennifer Gillis, an epidemiologist in Vancouver and senior manager of surveillance at the Canadian Cancer Society.
According to the cancer society, smoking tobacco is a factor in about 72 per cent of lung cancer deaths.
As of 2021, about 11.8 per cent of people age 12 and older in Canada smoked, Statistics Canada says.
The Canadian Cancer Society aims to reduce the smoking rate to five per cent by 2035, estimating it could prevent more than 50,000 cancer cases.
Other risk factors that can increase someone’s risk for lung cancer include radon gas, asbestos and air pollution, it said.
More research is also needed on e-cigarettes and vaping to determine the long-term effects of the chemicals they contain, the report said.
In addition to cutting down smoking rates, the report reflects progress in early screening and advances in treatment options, Gillis said.
“We’re really improving outcomes for people who have been diagnosed and are affected by lung cancer,” she said.
But despite the progress made, lung cancer is still responsible for about one in four cancer deaths in Canada, and remains the leading cause of cancer mortality, the report said.
The report estimates 20,600 people in Canada are expected to die from lung cancer in 2023.
Statistics Canada estimates lung cancer survival rates are 62 per cent for people diagnosed at stage 1, and 39 per cent at stage 2. That drops to 16 per cent at stage 3 and three per cent at stage 4.
The report says colorectal cancer is expected to be the second leading cause of cancer death in 2023, followed by pancreatic cancer.
Early lung cancer screening through CT scans makes a “powerful” difference, said Dr. Christian Finley, a thoracic surgeon at McMaster University in Hamilton, and a member of the Canadian Cancer Statistics Advisory Committee.
Ontario and British Columbia are running programs and several other provinces are trying to pilot them, he said.
Where lung cancer screening is available now, it’s targeted to people with a long history of smoking, Finley said.
Reducing stigma around lung cancer is also critical, he said.
“It’s one of the great sadnesses I have that I meet people for the first time and we talk about that they may have lung cancer and there’s so much self-blame there,” Finley said.
Bradley has experienced that stigma first hand.
Although she’s not a regular smoker, “my workmates and I would go out on Friday evening after work and have a drink, and with that drink we would have a cigarette,” she said.
“Was that the cause of my cancer? I don’t know. There was nothing that pointed towards that,” Bradley said.
“You always have that bit of guilt that maybe if I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t have gotten cancer.”
Stigma around lung cancer is so damaging that it can even affect people’s health-care decisions, Bradley said.
A couple of years ago, she volunteered as a peer mentor for a 48-year-old man in Thunder Bay, Ont., who had been diagnosed with lung cancer, she said.
He died and talking about him still brings her close to tears.
“He refused treatment because he blamed himself,” Bradley said.
“He just said, ‘No, I’ve done this to myself. I can’t go through anything. I just can’t because I did this to myself.’ He was so depressed. It was really awful,” she said.
Stigma and shame around lung cancer has also affected funding for research, prevention and treatment, said Finley.
Finley was a co-author of a study comparing research funding for different cancers published in 2018 in the journal Current Oncology.
Compared to other cancers, lung cancer is “dramatically underfunded,” he said.
“Lung cancer is responsible for 25 per cent of the (cancer) mortality and it gets five per cent of the funding,” he said.
The Canadian Cancer Society has been working to change that, investing millions of dollars into lung cancer research through “breakthrough grants,” Gillis said.
Patients with lung cancer have lots of reason for hope, Finley said.
“We’re doing minimally invasive surgeries that are really exciting. So people are going home the next day,” he said.
“Radiation is getting more targeted and better. And then the chemotherapy phase, they’ve got these new immunotherapies which can do miraculous things.”
“I’m optimistic,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2023.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
