For many years Maine has dealt with a high cancer mortality rate compared to the national rate. Cancer advocates believe having better access to testing and screening, along with biomarker testing, will help identify cancer sooner and treat cancer better – resulting in fewer deaths.

The state had the fourteenth highest cancer mortality rate nationwide in 2022, according the National Center for Health Statistics website.

Maine’s overall cancer incidence rate in 2021 was significantly higher than the national average, with 483.2 cases per 100,000 people in Maine and 439.1 cases per 100,000 people nationally, according to the Maine 2024 Annual Cancer Snapshot.

The 2024 Cancer Snapshot does not identify why overall cancer rates are so much higher in Maine compared to national rates.

In Maine, prostate and female breast cancer were the two highest rates of incidences in 2021, according to the 2024 Cancer Snapshot. Lung and bronchus cancer had the third highest incident rate. Maine’s lung cancer and female breast cancer incidence rates were significantly higher than the national average.

Looking at cancer mortalities in Maine, the overall cancer mortality rate has decreased since 2000, according to the 2024 Cancer Snapshot.

In 2021, lung and bronchus cancer was the deadliest, with 38.1 deaths per 100,000 people – significantly higher than the national lung cancer rate that year of 31.7 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the 2024 Cancer Snapshot.

The second deadliest cancer in Maine that year was prostate cancer, with 24.4 per 100,000 people, according to the 2024 Cancer Snapshot. It was also significantly higher than the national average of 19 per 100,000.

The mortality rate of female breast cancer that year was significantly lower than the national average, with 15.1 deaths per 100,000 people in Maine and 19.4 per 100,000 nationally, according to the 2024 Cancer Snapshot.

Advocates at the American Cancer Society in Maine are pushing to eliminate barriers to bringing these rates down, which include better access to testing and screening for rural Mainers, and making biomarker testing available to everyone with cancer.

Cancer screening and early detection is one of the most effective ways to curb cancer deaths, according to Julia MacDonald, government relations director in Maine for the American Cancer Society, Cancer Action Network.

“The later the cancer is caught the more ramifications it can have and it can lead to a higher death rate,” she said.

There are some federal programs that help people in need gain access to breast cancer, cervical cancer and prostate cancer screening, she said. The American Cancer Society advocated in Washington this week for more federal funding for the Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program.

Maine’s rural nature makes it hard for people living in more remote towns where there are no close health centers to seek cancer screening and testing, she said. That disparity is presented in multiple different ways, including clinical trials that require people to be close to the facility where the research is taking place.

People who live farther way from hospitals are less likely to be going to check-ups and getting the consistent care that leads to early detection, she said. Lack of transportation is also a big barrier to access to treatment for people living in rural areas.

In Maine, the American Cancer Society has also been advocating to pass a law requiring all insurance companies to pay for biomarker testing, she said. A bill mandating insurance companies to cover that was passed in the last legislative session but got hung up after the Legislature adjourned. She hopes to push that through again when legislators are back in session.

Biomarker testing identifies changes in cancer that could help doctors treat patients. It is specific to the person, according to information on the National Cancer Institute website. It is a more personalized way to treat patients. Tissue is taken from the body and tested.

Some insurance plans cover the testing but insurance companies are not required to cover it, MacDonald said.

The testing can also help keep costs down for patients because a doctor can use treatments known to better address the person’s specific cancer characteristics instead of those that are not as effective for certain cancers, she said.

Before biomarker testing “you would normally have been given chemo because there’s no way of knowing how your cancer would respond to that and now with biomarkers you are able to have what’s called precision medicine and you can see significant results,” she said.

Overall, she thinks state and federal governments should be prioritizing access to care, she said. There needs to be more access to cancer care and preventative care in the form of access to screening.