Prostate cancer rate spurs campaigners

African-Americans in Charles top state in number of cases

Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2008

The prostate cancer statistics among African-American males in Charles County are staggering. According to the National Cancer Institute, 254.7 black men per 100,000 people in the county were diagnosed with prostate cancer between 1998 and 2002, compared to 226.8 in Maryland and 248.5 nationwide.

In the United States, black men are diagnosed with prostate cancer one and a half times more than any other race or ethnicity, according to the NCI. About three out of 1,000 African-American men are diagnosed each year and more than one in 10 black men die from prostate cancer annually.

The Bel Alton Cancer Health Disparities program is being launched out of an office in the new community center on U.S 301 which opened about a week ago. Run by the Bel Alton High School Alumni Association Community Development Corporation, the Maryland Regional Community Network Program to Eliminate Cancer Health Disparities and the Charles County Department of Health, the program will work to eliminate disparities in participation in cancer treatment clinical trials among the black population in the county.

The program will also provide outreach and education about the importance of early detection and treatment of prostate, cervical, colorectal and breast cancer, especially for uninsured and underinsured people who live in rural areas such as Nanjemoy, said Joan Jones, president of the Bel Alton High School Alumni Association.

A $35,000 grant from the National Cancer Institute helped to kick off the program last year, she said.

The two-year grant enabled the Bel Alton alumni group to open an office in the community center that provides space for cancer education, Jones said.

‘‘We want to encourage people to get early screening and treatment,” she said. ‘‘It’s very important. There are too many incidents of cancer, especially prostate cancer, among African-Americans in our community. A lot of people don’t tend to go to the doctor.

‘‘We want people to at least go and get screened for prostate cancer at the health department,” she said. ‘‘It’s an ailment that has been identified as problematic for African-American males. Men need to get screened. It’s important.”

Joseph Johnson volunteers in the Bel Alton office along with a handful of other people. Johnson said he is out and about most of every week trying to spread the word about the importance of prostate cancer screening.

‘‘I try to get information out to the community about the disparities in health care among African-American males,” he said. ‘‘I try to convince them to take advantage of the information that we have about cancer detection.”

Johnson said that he is concerned about prostate cancer and is regularly screened for the often-fatal disease.

‘‘It does disturb me,” he said. ‘‘Personally, I monitor my prostate. Both my brother and I are on a watch system.”

The African-American population does need to be concerned about the alarming number of prostate cancer incidents in Charles County, said Sen. Thomas ‘‘Mac” Middleton (D-Charles). The senator was instrumental in working with the Ministers Alliance of Charles County and Vicinity, Claudia Baquet of the University of Maryland School of Medicine and local health officials to secure $280,000 to fund a pilot program in Charles County for prostate cancer screening and treatment.

Middleton said that he became aware of the astronomical number of prostate cancer cases in the black community after hearing a presentation of the findings of a study on the topic.

‘‘The numbers are staggering,” he said. ‘‘Charles County leads the state in prostate cancer incidents. I was just floored. I couldn’t get over it. ... This program gives us an opportunity to do something. We can’t just sit back and do nothing.”

If the pilot program is successful, Middleton said that he wants to make it a statewide initiative.

The county health department in White Plains offers prostate, colorectal, cervical and breast cancer screenings, said Chinnadurai Devadason, the county’s health officer.

‘‘We’re trying to mobilize the minority community to become aware of these health issues and to respond in some way,” he said. ‘‘The new program is a good thing. We’re trying to get the community to become aware of health issues so that they can seek early diagnosis and treatment of cancer.”

It is unclear why the prostate cancer rate is so high in Charles County, Devadason said.

‘‘The Eastern Seaboard of the United States has more cancer incidents that the Pacific coast,” he said. ‘‘There are a lot of theories. There were a lot of chemical industries along the Eastern Seaboard. People didn’t know the dangers of some of those chemicals that were used 40 years ago.”

Tobacco use, poverty in rural pockets of the county and gunpowder manufacturing at the Navy base in Indian Head could also be contributing factors, according to local health officials.

The Bel Alton office will also be working with health officials to bridge the gap in federally funded cancer treatment clinical trial participation among the black community. A study recently published by the University of Maryland School of Medicine noted that participation in the trials is particularly low in Southern Maryland – a fact that suggests a growing racial, ethnic and geographic disparity in cancer treatment, according to Baquet, who co-authored the study that involved 2,240 Maryland cancer patients who were enrolled in National Cancer Institute-sponsored trials from 1999 to 2002.

‘‘Low representation of African-Americans, other minorities and rural patients in cancer clinical trials could contribute to health disparities,” she said in a press release. ‘‘Without adequate diversity, it may be difficult to generalize about trial results because you don’t know whether new treatments or preventative strategies have comparable effects among patients from diverse racial or ethnic groups.”

‘‘I’m surprised by the low participation rate in Charles County,” Devadason said. ‘‘Local doctors are pretty familiar with the trials and they know when they’re being conducted.”

Mary Emily Whelan, a community outreach worker with the health department’s breast and cervical cancer program, will be working a few days a week at the Bel Alton community center to spread the word about the importance of cervical and prostate cancer screening and treatment.

People will be able to sign up for cancer screening at the Bel Alton office and then have the procedure done at the health department, Whelan said.

‘‘The center will be the starting point,” she said. ‘‘We’re going to try our best to go out there and find everybody who is uninsured and underinsured and convince them to do what needs to be done. There have been a lot of cancer deaths in the county. People don’t take care of themselves. They really need to take advantage of this program.”

A big problem for many of the county’s low-income residents is transportation to much-needed services, said Bill Leebel, health department spokesman.

‘‘The big issue is always transportation,” he said, adding that the health department receives about $605,000 a year from the state to fund the cancer education and screening program. ‘‘That budget is pretty much gone by the end of the year, but we find other sources to fund it.”

Health department workers show up at community centers throughout the county, particularly in the rural areas, at church health fairs and the county fair to educate the public about the importance of cancer screening and treatment, Leebel said.

‘‘We have a targeted population that we know we need to serve and we’re working to get these services to them,” he said.

Men who are 40 or older and who are uninsured or underinsured should sign up to be screened for prostate cancer at the health department, said Dolores Datcher, a local health educator who helped to launch the cancer health disparities program at Bel Alton.

‘‘The community is coming together on this and it’s great,” she said. ‘‘I’m so excited about what they are doing. This program is really great.”

Bonita Adeeb, a teacher at Thomas Stone High School in Waldorf and vice president of the Black Leadership Council for Excellence, said the council is sponsoring a gospel program and dinner for about 30 men at the Bel Alton community center from 3 to 5 p.m. Aug. 24 that will feature a presentation about prostate cancer.

‘‘We’re trying to get several hundred men to listen to the prostate education program,” she said. ‘‘It’s an amazing project. It’s very important that we do this. We know that we have a tremendous problem.”

Adeeb said that she is enlisting the help of her students to spread the word about the program. ‘‘I plan to have a lot of young people out there to educate people about prostate cancer,” she said. ‘‘I’m happy to be in the forefront of this effort.”

‘‘Education is the first step,” Devadason said. ‘‘People need to know what’s going on.”