Cancer Care Ontario's 2006-07 annual progress report has both good and bad news for people living in this region.
People from northeastern Ontario are more likely to get all types of cancer than their counterparts in the south because of high smoking and obesity rates, says Terry Sullivan, president and CEO of Cancer Care Ontario.
His organization is an umbrella group that steers and co-ordinates Ontario's cancer services and prevention efforts.
The high rates of colorectal cancer, which is extremely hard to cure, is especially troubling, he says. In Ontario, 7,500 people were diagnosed with colorectal cancer, 6.5 percent of whom live in the northeast.
To combat this problem, the province has introduced a mass colorectal cancer screening program similar to the breast screening program.
Starting this year, family doctors will refer patients who have close relatives with the disease for colonoscopies. Next year, family doctors will do fecal occult blood tests on everyone over the age of 50.
There were also some positive developments in cancer care in the northeast in the past year:
-Radiation wait times have come down approximately 20 percent (one week less than last year).
-There is a plan to continue to improve access across the region by developing a radiation affiliate on the campus of the Sault Area Hospital.
-The northeast has the highest breast screening rates in the province.
