Cancer detection; a county medical society program, Riverside, California

Cancer detection examinations by physicians in their private offices were performed as a county medical society project for a period of one year.In a series of 6,765 patients examined, approximately 600 were found to have lesions clinically suspect for tumor. The total number of proven cancers discovered was 280 and the number of lesions classified as precancerous was 87. This percentage of tumors discovered compares favorably with reports from special cancer detection centers formerly utilized in other parts of the country. The Cancer Commission believes that periodic health examinations of persons over the age of 40 in the offices of private physicians is a practical approach to the problem of earlier detection of tumors at accessible sites-the tumors that are the most readily curable by current surgical and radiotherapeutic techniques.