A cancer atlas of Los Angeles area communities chronicles
cancer patterns.
Maps are useful for navigating the streets to get to a destination, but a new atlas by Thomas Mack, M.D., M.P.H., is even more useful: it points out communities where cancer is congregating.
Cancers in the Urban Envi-ronment, the first volume of its kind, chronicles
cancer occurrence in Los Angeles County and its neighborhoods. For those concerned
about local cancer patterns or risk factors, the atlas provides data about
Los Angeles-area communities and comparisons with other regions.
The book details data collected between 1972 and 1998 via the Los Angeles County Cancer Surveillance Program, the official registry for all cases of cancer occurring in residents of the county. The Keck School of Medicine of USC and USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center administers the Cancer Surveillance Program as part of the California Cancer Registry, which tracks every cancer diagnosis in California.
Researchers included and analyzed 750,000 cases—encompassing 84 categories
of malignancy with descriptions by age, sex, calendar time, race/ethnicity,
social class and neighborhood—in the book. They identified neighborhoods
at apparent high risk.
Mack, a professor of preventive medicine and pathology at the Keck School
and former director of the Los Angeles County Cancer Surveillance Program,
hopes the book will serve as a tool for people worried about cancer risk or
patterns. By reviewing explanations about the data collection and findings,
patterns and maps, and about cases that are similar to their own or their
communities, readers can determine if they need to seek additional help—whether
individually with a physician, or collectively to combat pollution or other
variables that could play a role in cancer clusters.
“I decided to publish the book because those of us who have worked in
the USC-Los Angeles County Cancer Registry have received calls from concerned
persons worried about whether the cases they have heard about signify a high
risk to persons in their neighborhood and whether that risk is the result
of an environmental danger,” Mack says. “The book is designed to
let people understand how one should think about the issue of neighborhood
cancer risk.”
The information contained in Cancers in the Urban Environment may also be
applicable to other large urban areas. Because Los Angeles County’s residents
are diverse in their ethnic makeup and lifestyles, the geographical patterns
of cancer occurrence are likely to be more revealing and may correlate to
other large cities with similarly diverse populations.
Mack hopes the information in Cancers in the Urban Environment will prompt
others to make hypotheses about the geographical diversity of cancer risks.
“The fight against cancer, like the fight against other chronic diseases,
is a slow, battle-by-battle fight that takes place on many fronts,” he
says. “We make progress every year and this progress eventually results
in fewer cancer deaths.”
He adds, “There are dozens of different kinds of cancer, and dozens
of areas of potential progress for each one. Some battles are going very well;
some have proven more difficult.”
Perhaps the cancer atlas is the road map toward more definitive answers about the occurrence of cancer.
Cancers in the Urban Environment: Patterns of Malignant Disease in Los
Angeles County and its Neighborhoods by Thomas M. Mack is available via online
retailers including www.amazon.com
and www.barnesandnoble.com.
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