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Cancer study findings “Take it from me” Why women should schedule regular mammograms. Page 21 > Along with her mother, who is a retired teacher, Modoc Teachers Association member Patti Perkins Carpenter has been a participant in the California Teachers Study, a longitudinal study that has tracked cancer and the health of more than 133,000 female teachers. Little did she know when she became a participant that she would be battling cancer herself in the ensuing years. She remembers going through the extensive health survey and being amused by questions that asked her how often she eats broccoli or whether she lived near high tension wires or grew up around feedlots. The survey is part of a research project of the Northern California Cancer Center (NCCC), which studies cancer causes, trends and prevention. The center has been collaborating with several California institutions in collecting and analyzing survey data and data on cancer occurrence for the study. “As I filled it in, I thought how fortunate I was that no one in my family had cancer. I thought I was healthy and that I ate right,” says Carpenter. “It just shows you that you never know what’s going to happen.” Carpenter, like thousands of other teacher participants, has provided valuable information that is leading to some interesting cancer theories and is likely to be used in research well into the future. Begun in 1995, the initial study collected data from an extensive questionnaire that focused on lifestyle, medical history, and women’s health. Since then, study participants have completed additional surveys. Questionnaires were mailed to every CalSTRS member, which resulted in over 40 percent of the members wanting to be involved in the study. The questionnaire information has been linked with data from the California Cancer Registry, which has tracked all cases of cancer diagnosed in the state since 1988. “Teachers have been so valuable to us in this study,” says Pamela Horn-Ross, a research scientist for the NCCC and a founding investigator of the California Teachers Study. “They’ve been totally cooperative, enthusiastic and engaged.” “They’ve given us great data. In some ways, California teachers will be the MEMBER PARTICIPATION ACROSS THE STATE Group, which provides support as well as expenses for women to travel out of the county to receive mammograms. “We talked about hosting a golf tournament two years ago to build camaraderie and community support,” she says. “Now it’s turned into a fund-raiser for the support group, which is near and dear to my heart.” ‘Harvard Nurses’ of the future,” says NCCC research scientist Christina Clarke, referring to a landmark study of more than 180,000 nurses that provided a wealth of information about women’s health. “In fact, we are now planning a new study involving California teachers that we hope will be as impactful as the nurses’ study in providing important new data to inform women about how dealing with menopause will affect their risk of cancer and heart disease in the future.” Early findings from the study confirmed concerns previously expressed by teachers that they experienced a higher rate of breast cancer than comparable women in California. The study has found that teachers have much lower rates of lung cancer and death from heart disease than the general population because they are a “spectacularly non-smoking group,” according to Clarke. Unfortunately, research also indicates that teachers have a 30 percent higher rate of uterine cancer and a 50 percent higher rate of melanoma (see sidebar page 20), two areas the study’s investigators are now actively researching. Continued on page 20 SEPTEMBER 2009 | www.cta.org 19