Cancer myths can kill you!

False Beliefs Threaten Cancer Patients - Survey
Mon Oct 6, 5:02 PM ET Add Science - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 40 percent of lung disease patients believe that surgery can spread cancer by exposing the tumors to the air -- a false idea that could cost them their lives, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

This and other untrue beliefs about cancer may be much more common among Americans than anyone thought, the researchers wrote in this week's issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. They are especially common among blacks.


story.news.yahoo.com.../nm/20031006/sc_nm/health_cancer_beliefs_dc

I think this quote is the key:

Most of the patients were male and tended to be elderly, and the poorer and less educated they were, the more likely they were to believe it, Margolis said.

People just need to be educated more. That is where most myths come from, someone not knowing all the facts and adding in their own fears to create the myth.

There was something that struck me the wrong way when I read this post. I thought "How could 60% of lung cancer patients believe this to be true?" Sounded crazy to me. This is what was actually stated in the Annal:

Results: 38% of patients (61% of whom were African American and 29% of whom were white) stated that they believe air exposure at surgery causes tumor spread. The most significant predictor of belief was African-American race (odds ratio, 3.5 [95% CI, 1.9 to 6.5]), even after controlling for other relevant variables in a multivariable analysis. Nineteen percent of African Americans stated that this belief was a reason for opposing surgery, and 14% would not accept their physicians� assertion that the belief is false. These rates were also statistically significantly higher among African-American than white patients.
BIG DIFFERENCE!

Where'd you get the 60% figure?

The article says "nearly 40%" believe tumors can be spread by open air contact with the wound. First sentence.

MY BAD

**Venus shakes off morning fog** YAWN!!
You are right......It does say that 40% of lung cancer patients believe that to be true..... I was thinking about the 60% that know better....LOL

I still think it's misleading to say 40% of lung cancer patients believe this. It should say that 40% of patients SURVEYED believe this. ONLY 652 people were surveyed


We breath air into our lungs, right? How does the air we breath not make the cancer spread but if it is exposed due to surgery to open air it would spread?

[Edited on 10/7/2003 by Venus]

(g) I'm taking statistical research methods right now (grad school course in anthropology.) I can tell you how they arrived at that number of people to survey, and how they're certain it's a good sample... but it's a bunch of math and I'm sooooooooo sleepy at this hour!

In brief, they did what was called a "cluster sample" and weighted it for population. It was probably age adjusted and race adjusted -- that would be standard. I imagine they collected the data, tossed it into SPSS (there's an annoying program!) and crunched the results.