Cancer projections
About 1,030,000 Americans will learn this year that they have cancer, thereby joining more than 3 million others who already are undergoing treatment. More than 300,000 of these new diagnoses will be for skin cancer.In making these projections with the help of data from the National Cancer Institute and National Center for Health Statistics, the American Cancer Society says some 385,000 people in this country will die of cancer during 1977 (compared with an estimated 377,000 in 1976). Of these 385,000 cancer patients, the society says 115,000 might have survived with earlier treatment.Cancer continues to claim more men than women each year, the 1976 ratio being about 55 to 45. Among men, lung cancer has increased 125% in 25 years and there have been slight increases for cancers of the colon, prostate, pancreas, and bladder. For women, lung cancer has increased, while breast and colon cancer