Nova Scotia has launched a screening program for people at very high risk of developing lung cancer.
For Dr. Daria Manos, it was an announcement years in the making.
“What a momentous day,” she said during a news conference in Halifax on Friday. “We need this program. Lung cancer kills more Nova Scotians than colon, prostate and breast cancers combined.”
Manos, a radiologist and medical director of the lung screening program, said the news follows years of research, consultation, planning and advocacy.
Dr. Daria Manos of the Nova Scotia Health Lung Screening Program welcomed the announcement Friday. (Communications Nova Scotia)
The program includes clinical assessments and CT scans.
Nova Scotians aged 50 to 74 who have smoked daily for 20 years or more at any point in their lives can contact the program and have a nurse assess their personal risk of lung cancer to determine if they would benefit from screening with a chest CT scan.
People will be able to refer themselves to the program and do not need a family doctor.
Dr. Madelaine Plourde, Nova Scotia Health’s chief of thoracic surgery, said early detection of lung cancer is vital to a positive outcome. Three-year survival rates can be greater than 80 per for people diagnosed at Stage 1; the number plummets to just eight per cent when someone reaches Stage 4.
“Unfortunately, about 70 per cent of the patients we see will be found to have advanced-stage lung cancer at the time of their diagnosis. This means that they will not be offered the chance for curative treatment,” she said.
“The truth is, if you are presenting with symptoms of lung cancer, it’s already too late.”
Dr. Madelaine Plourde, the head of thoracic surgery at Dalhousie University, speaks about the importance of the new screening program. (Communications Nova Scotia)
Along with screening, the program is also focused on confronting the shame that can be associated with people who smoke and get lung cancer. There will be education about lung health and support and resources to help people quit smoking. Free nicotine replacement therapy will be provided.
“Smoking is an addiction,” said Manos. “We are here to help. It is never too late to benefit from quitting smoking.”
Education is something Kendra Slawter is pleased to see included in Friday’s announcement. The patient advocate lost four members of her family in the last decade to cancer.
Slawter said she’s hoping the new program can help spare others the pain her family has experienced. It’s important to acknowledge that people don’t always have the ability to make lifestyle changes on their own, she said.
Making these tools available, and putting a particular emphasis on marginalized communities that have experienced systemic barriers to accessing care, is an important step, said Slawter.
“My hope for the program going forward is for people to see the benefit in quitting and understand that it’s not too late and that there’s supports there to help you.”
Variety of factors drive high cancer rates
Health Minister Michelle Thompson said the time was right to launch the screening program because of the advocacy work and professional expertise that’s pushed for it for years.
“Fixing health care means we have to improve cancer screening and the care,” she said.
“Simply put, this program will help prevent and detect lung cancer earlier. It will help save lives.”
Friday’s announcement follows others in recent months aimed at improving cancer care.
The government has announced funding for new forms of therapy and treatments and a major push to expand the use of technology for more individualized treatment options that in many cases mean less invasive procedures for shorter periods of time.
It also comes at a time when updated statistics show Nova Scotia has the highest incidence rate for cancer in the country.
Eastern provinces historically have had higher rates of cancer due to factors such as aging demographics, environmental considerations and lifestyle factors such as higher rates of smoking, drinking, obesity and chronic disease than the rest of the country.
Putting an increased focus on prevention
Dr. Helmut Hollenhorst, the senior medical director of the province’s cancer care program, told CBC News in a recent interview that about 45,000 Nova Scotians today live with cancer. That number is expected to grow to 200,000 by the end of the decade as the population ages, he said.
While that can sound startling, Hollenhorst said there can be a good quality of life beyond a diagnosis with early and timely access to the right treatments and therapies. It’s also why there needs to be more focus on prevention, he said.
Hollenhorst estimates that between 30 and 50 per cent of cancers can be prevented if people avoid smoking and drinking, maintain an active lifestyle and make fruits and vegetables a regular part of their diet. People should also be mindful of environmental factors such as arsenic in water and radon gas in their home, he said.
Enhanced prevention efforts will require help from a variety of partners across the health-care system and government more broadly, said Hollenhorst. The benefit of positive health and lifestyle choices will not only reduce the risk of cancer, but also the risk of other chronic diseases, he said.
“This is something where we don’t see impact quickly. We are in for the long haul and we need to change the trajectory of health in general and primary prevention is key and it needs to be addressed to make a difference in the long term.”
Lung screening program starts in central zone
The new lung screening program is available in the province’s central health zone by calling 1-833-505-5864.
It will be rolled out across the province over the next two years. The provincial government will spend $3 million a year on the program when it is fully implemented across Nova Scotia.
The Canadian Partnership Against Cancer has contributed $350,000 to the program and is also committing nearly $1 million over the next three years to develop strategies to reach diverse and vulnerable populations.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.
There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.
The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.
Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.
Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.
Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.
“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.
But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.
That includes his own teenage daughter.
“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.
It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.
“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”
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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
How a sperm and egg fuse together has long been a mystery.
New research by scientists in Austria provides tantalizing clues, showing fertilization works like a lock and key across the animal kingdom, from fish to people.
“We discovered this mechanism that’s really fundamental across all vertebrates as far as we can tell,” said co-author Andrea Pauli at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.
The team found that three proteins on the sperm join to form a sort of key that unlocks the egg, allowing the sperm to attach. Their findings, drawn from studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, show how this process has persisted over millions of years of evolution. Results were published Thursday in the journal Cell.
Scientists had previously known about two proteins, one on the surface of the sperm and another on the egg’s membrane. Working with international collaborators, Pauli’s lab used Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence tool AlphaFold — whose developers were awarded a Nobel Prize earlier this month — to help them identify a new protein that allows the first molecular connection between sperm and egg. They also demonstrated how it functions in living things.
It wasn’t previously known how the proteins “worked together as a team in order to allow sperm and egg to recognize each other,” Pauli said.
Scientists still don’t know how the sperm actually gets inside the egg after it attaches and hope to delve into that next.
Eventually, Pauli said, such work could help other scientists understand infertility better or develop new birth control methods.
The work provides targets for the development of male contraceptives in particular, said David Greenstein, a genetics and cell biology expert at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study.
The latest study “also underscores the importance of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry,” he said in an email.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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