BANGOR (AP) – Maine was given the nation’s top ranking in the ongoing fight against cancer in a report released Wednesday by the American Cancer Society.

The report, titled “How Do You Measure Up?,” grades states on five separate cancer issues.

Maine was the only state to meet the cancer society’s benchmarks in four of five categories. Those categories are increasing cigarette excise taxes to fund anti-smoking programs; providing funding for smoking cessation campaigns; ensuring Medicaid coverage for smoking cessation coverage; and mandating insurance coverage for certain routine cancer screenings.

The state fell short on efforts involving colon cancer screening, according to the report.

But even with the high marks, Maine’s overall cancer death rate is higher than the national average, and its death rate from colon cancer is the highest in the country, according to the director of the Bureau of Health.

Dr. Dora Ann Mills said Maine’s colon cancer screening rates are higher than the national average. Fifty-one percent of people over 50 in Maine have had some form of screening, compared to 35 percent nationally, she said.

But for reasons she said aren’t clear, the death rate in Maine due to colon cancer is the highest in the nation.

In fact, Mills said, mortality from all cancers is higher in Maine than it is nationally.

, despite good public health interventions.

“The screening rate is higher (than the national average), the incidence of diagnosis is the same, and the stage at which the cancer is found is the same,” Mills said. “And yet the mortality rate is higher.”

Megan Hannan of the New England division of the American Cancer Society, said an estimated 800 new cases of colon cancer will be diagnosed in Maine this year, and 310 Mainers will die of the disease.

While insurers in Maine offer coverage for colorectal screening, it is not a required benefit like mammography, according to Hannan.

But even if it were mandated, many people tend to avoid the procedure because it is unpleasant, she said.