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City Dwellers Risk Later Cancer Diagnosis
Produced by Gabriel Spitzer on Monday, May 11, 2009
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A new study finds cancer patients from Chicago are more likely to get a late diagnosis than people from rural Illinois. More advanced cancer tends to be harder to treat.
Researchers say they first thought rural patients would be diagnosed later, since those people have farther to go to see a doctor. But University of Illinois professor Sarah McLafferty says they found just the opposite. Chicagoans have the highest risk for a late-stage diagnosis, then the suburbs, then smaller cities. Small-town patients had the least risk. McLafferty, a geography professor, says that was sort of baffling.
MCLAFFERTY: Chicago contains the lartgest number of hospitals and doctors and, you know, world-class medical facilities. But for some reason, they’re not getting early care for cancer.
She says the reasons aren’t clear: it could be that city dwellers are just busier, or lack primary care doctors. The study was based on data from Illinois’s cancer registry. It’s out in the journal, CANCER.
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