Study suggests Nunavimmiut more likely to die from lung cancer
Researchers say findings point to consequences of delays in diagnosis and treatment for Inuit in northern Quebec
A new study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal suggests people in Nunavik have a lower chance of survival after lung cancer diagnoses, in comparison to those who live in Montreal. The issue, the study suggests, is lack of fast access to diagnostic scans and treatment. (Photo by Dr. James Heilman, via Wikimedia Commons)
A new study suggests people who live in Nunavik are more likely to die from lung cancer.
The study, published Feb. 20 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, compared lung cancer registry data involving patients in Montreal and Nunavik who were diagnosed between 2005 and 2017.
The results were divided between the two main types of lung cancers: small cell and non-small cell. Approximately 80 to 85 per cent of cancers are of the non-small cell variety, according to the American Cancer Society.
The study found Nunavik residents had a median survival time of 321 days versus 720 days for Montreal residents for non-small cell lung cancer.
For small-cell cancer diagnoses, Nunavik residents had a median survival time of 190 days, versus 270 days for those in Montreal.
Nunavik residents are not genetically predisposed to lung cancer, the study said. Rather, the results are more likely to be a result of “chronic underfunding and under-resourcing of Nunavik’s health services, as well as the lack of Inuit representation in health-care provision.”
Dr. Nathalie Boulanger, professional services director at the Ungava Tulattavik Health Centre in Kuujjuaq, said the study’s results “floored” her.
Viewing a study like that, she said, “You say to yourself, my God, are we not able to offer better health care to our population than that?”
The problem Boulanger said she sees is delays at almost every point of care for patients.
“It takes an eternity to have a scan, and there are delays to get access to specialists,” she said.
The treatment for cancer itself is a process that takes multiple months and is often a huge challenge for patients to conquer on top of the illness itself, said Boulanger.
All lung cancer patients from Nunavik receive treatment at the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal. Many patients don’t arrive with escorts and don’t know anybody in the city who can provide support.
“There is a big proportion of people that after some time they pull the plug,” Boulanger said.
“They decide to stop going down south for treatment and they let the cancer kill them, because it is just too much for them.”
She said she wants to see a scan accessible in both Kuujjuaq and Puvirnituq hospitals. That would allow many patients to avoid travelling for multiple days for an appointment that takes only about 90 minutes to complete.
Patients see the same issue with breast cancer, Boulanger said. Mammography scans, which take about 15 minutes, are also not regularly available in Nunavik and some patients have to travel for weeks just to have one.
A machine that can provide these scans would also be helpful to spot colon cancer, any abdominal anomalies and even determining what type of stroke a victim may have suffered, Boulanger said.
ANOTHER BAD STATISTIC FOR US !!!!!!!!
You mean tobacco consuming world!!!! Tobacco has so much more additives say from 50 yrs ago. It could even be considered a drug where before it was tobacco leaves with minimal additions….
“the results are more likely… a result of “chronic underfunding and under-resourcing of Nunavik’s health services, as well as the lack of Inuit representation in health-care provision.”
Amazing that tropes about “representation” still have traction. Sure, it is probably a net positive, but is it really the source of the problem here?
Undoubtedly Nunavik Health is unable to provide comparable care to Montreal. That issue pervades all relatively remote places in the world.
What is really amazing in this piece is that the number one predictor of lung cancer is not mentioned even once. I suppose this begs the question, was it left out of the research, or ignored by our local media? It would be interesting to know.
So, why is that? Why this exquisite fear of pointing out where people might own responsibility for their health? Unacceptable, right? It’s the “system” obviously, I’m surprised the article didn’t scream “racism.”
Why are factors around personal accountability so taboo in the North?
No mention of the fact that about 80% of Nunavut adults smoke? Compared to 12.2% of Quebecers generally?
That can’t possibly be part of this, eh?
Yea, didn’t think so…
*Nunavik… oops
If they are looking for funding, the local suppliers will have to tax the hell out of cigarettes. According to StatsCan the average person from Nunavik smokes 16 cigarettes per day, that is equal to 2550 packs, say tax each pack an extra 10 bucks a pack.
That will put more than 9M into the coffers of their health providers. Either they will have more money to use or people will stop smoking. Either way it’s a better situation.
PM Harper had already raised cigarette taxes over 10 years ago to off-set health care costs, and then immediately slashed health care funding across the country by 40%+
We all know the stat numbers the real question is why is it so high for Inuit, that’s the real question.
it seems more like, 92% adults smoke, and about 80% young adults (teenagers) every single time i go out, i see everybody smoking, sometimes i see 11-12 yr olds smoking! thats since and bad, but thats the fact!
Funny how the so call “study” doesn’t mention any links to nunavimmiuts absurdly high levels of smoking. Maybe the highest in the world.
It’s the SMOKING. Wasn’t even mentioned once. Inuit have poorer outcomes mostly because they damage their bodies through voluntary and expensive lifestyle decisions like SMOKING.
Yes, living in a remote area impacts the availability of health care. It does that for people of any race or ethnic heritage who live in remote areas, PLUS non-Inuit have to actually either pay their own medical travel, or get insurance from an employer, which involves actually holding down a job. Inuit get it free.
It’s not racism and colonialism, folks. It’s smoking, poor diet, substance abuse, and other lifestyle factors, coupled with living in isolated communities that make medical travel necessary. If you want easy access to tertiary health care, you have to live in a city, no matter what your race or ethnic heritage is.
Woke academics have no choice but to find ways to make marginalized people look like victims. They already know the results of these studies before they even begin doing research.
‘Mariginalized’ (whatever that is) are always victims, and victims are never responsible for themselves. This is an axiom among so called progressives.
@ Reality
Inuit gave up a large part of our rights through the JBNQA, and got the “so-called” free health services we’re stuck with now. Quebec/Canada wouldn’t have billions in revenue from the massive hydro projects in the Nunavik region were it not for our “free” health care.
The fires at the dump don’t help, or camping with naphtha burners, and insect repellent smoke. Stop living off antibiotics and fight your inheritance of oxygen starvation
Ethology and prognosis: cause and outcomes of lung cancer or even cancer in general. Oh yes smoking on top of the list for the causes. Few things to point out: first this report focuses on the prognosis or the outcome of mortality after treatment gets on the way. But equally important and to show that someone is not in middle somewhere benefiting from a story , rather than a good news article on well-being and it’s message to be so, through the presenting such story to benefit the public. Because why discuss outcomes and not causation. The causes of lung cancer in Nunavik appeared to have been missed all along, How many doctors nurses and health care workers really did go about their work promoting rather than reacting to disease in Nunavik while they work here? Makes you believe they just want to superficially treat and go. Same for booze and drugs, time the authorities get on board and do a better job to tell people truth about their bad habits. Enough money around Nunavik wasted , pay local people to be involved and help them educate everyone else.. Then we don’t have to discuss outcomes in that way again.
I always knew it was colonialism that made rates higher in the north, now I can cite a study to justify my addiction to smoke three packs a day.
Perhaps maybe drinking day in day out is a factor ;( in those rates as well.
These studies are mostly useless to point out that people are not getting health care compared to the rest of a population. You can takeover any group of people, even demographics from a city comparing subdivisions and you can arrange the conclusion in such a way as to make a finding look amazing or unequal, or any other conclusion you may need to be part of a research paper that useless in preventing a condition or disease whatever. It makes sense only because it pointed out something, but it’s still useless. What people need to know is that they have a life style that is responsible for the cancer, or disease, liver diseases, aids, or on and on. Some people getting these cancers even though they don’t have bad habits, but for sake of making this research point the right way, people are in need of knowledge about their behaviours and told too, when you don’t look after your health, you get sick early and die. Whether you live downtown or out in the woods.
Smoking lives very well in Nunavik, from ages about 5 or 6 years old , butt users, all the way to old age, lots of bums in that group too. But the smoking is notoriously killing Nunavik population. The booze: just to mention the behaviour that any one can see for themselves at the two local coop beer outlets. The one at kuujjuaq is probably the best for show and tell. That place will open on any day, no matter the weather. The conditions of a death will reluctantly close it down for the said day, but it’s that store beer selling behaviour is worth researching to understand behaviour and how important booze is to the staff to sell, the customer to buy. And after a short opening time , it’s staff and customers free to drink silliness into the jail , or emergency dept. research local coop store. That what you should research, just for behaviour education, to get my booze hour.
You guys know that some of you Inuit are racist yourselves. Have you seen a video made in iqaluit? Pretty racist video.
Racism lives in people. Maybe everyone has a touch of it, but most people don’t actively show it. There are good people as well as bad people. Bad people are the hurtful ones. Like as long as there’s difference in this world, there will be racism, bias, prejudice. It’s how good or bad one is to holding the secret of feeling inside, because, let’s face it, if you feel ill towards someone, you can’t take the law in vain. It’s one feelings, you can’t express really, but you can just be yourself without hurting others. Multiculturalism living today, its being assessed in hindsight and analysis of movement of people across the globe, its showing that multiculturalism is a failure. Rather than seeing harmony among all humans, it’s hate instead, and sometimes war rather than peace. There’s lots of research pointing out that people should stay and maintain their life and situations, in their own environment, but not mix in the way it’s going with immigration. But we must respect each other in all our differences.
I m a ” Closet Racist ” .
The closet racist gets eaten up inside. Can’t express rightfully so, fortunately for the victims, but self destructive thoughts are worth getting help for. So is hate.
Research results are everywhere. Drawing conclusions, and even bias applied. Some research should be banned in the name of waste funding. The fact is people in Nunavik are more likely to die from lung cancer secondary to the fact that people in Nunavik are more likely to get lung cancer, all from having behaviours that are more likely to cause lung cancer. There’s no need to say more than that about lung cancer in Nunavik. To say that research shows that people in Nunavik are not treated with equal to other people down south or other places, does nothing worthwhile for improving Nunavik living conditions. It’s actually siding on with telling people their bad habits are somehow ok, only if they were equally treated like other people once they get sick from their bad habits. This has an encouraging or acceptable bad habit is ok, providing you get treatment like other people. I say get rid of research like that. It’s saying nothing worthwhile.
Nunavik wants to lower the death rate from lung cancer? How about you all just stop smoking!!! With smoking rates in Nunavik ands Nunavut rates hovering between between 60 and 70 percent (some of the highest in the western world) there’s room for improvement. Let’s not blames discrepancies in diagnosis and treatment when we all know where the real issue lies.
Me and my friend did a survey for our school back in the early 2000s. More than half the junior and senior school would smoke a pack a week. This is in nunavut. Some spent 50 grand a year on cigarettes. Their eyes got big and said this could be a new truck
Instead of opening pack of cigarettes Inuit could open a new truck. But the bad habits got better part of their lives. If Inuit had vehicle addiction instead of cigarettes and drugs or alcohol.
The comments here obviously didn’t bother to read the article. This study is comparing the health outcomes of people WITH lung cancer.
The outcomes reported have nothing to do with smoking rates, in fact, the study design sought to reduce the bias introduced by smoking status. That means that they compared outcomes of people with the same smoking status and found that even the smokers with lung cancer in Nunavik had worse outcomes than the smokers with lung cancer in Montreal.
That means that of people in Montreal and Nunavik, when equally compared, those who live in Nunavik and are diagnosed with lung cancer are more likely to die than those with lung cancer living in Montreal. Nunavimmiut with lung cancer are experiencing poorer outcomes than their southern counterparts. That is something that needs to be investigated. Survival rates should not be so variable between populations.
The study is NOT a commentary on whether Nunavimmiut are more likely to develop lung cancer. Read the article!!!
Headline: Study suggests Nunavimmiut more likely to die from lung cancer
Comments: Yea, because smoking
You: That’s not what this is about!!!
Did you read the study, or even the article? It’s not what it’s about. Of smokers with lung cancer, they’re more likely to die than their southern counterparts who smoke and have lung cancer. This study isn’t about risk factors for developing lung cancer. What’s so hard to understand?
So what are the factors here? Why is there so much smoking? What are the reasons and how can we make improvements?