Toby Keith's Cancer Diagnosis Sparks Conversation About Warning Signs

Oklahoma's Own Toby Keith said he's looking forward to spending time with his family, and he can't wait to get back on stage, following his treatment for stomach cancer.

His diagnosis is prompting doctors to talk about the symptoms of stomach cancer.

Stomach or gastric cancer is fairly rare in the US, about 1.5-percent of all new cancer diagnoses each year.

However, the risk factors are driven up by common things like eating smoked or salted meat.

Country music star Toby Keith announced Sunday he's been undergoing treatment for stomach cancer since last fall.

The multi-platinum-selling singer from Moore said on Twitter, so far things are looking good after surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.

OU Medical Center Chief of Surgical Oncology Dr. Ajay Jain said because stomach cancer isn't as common here, and because symptoms like heartburn, vomiting, and abdominal pain, are easily overlooked, the cancer often goes unnoticed.

"Most gastric cancer here is picked up at a later stage," he said. "The problem is since we don't routinely screen for gastric cancer oftentimes people don't come to medical attention until they have limiting symptoms."

The vast majority of treatments include surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.

Dr. Jain, the National Library of Medicine, and BMJ Journals said in Asian countries, stomach cancer rates are much higher compared to the 1.5-percent of all cancers in America.

There, it's the third most common cancer after breast and lung cancers.

Nearly every study cites an increased consumption of salted and smoked foods as a cause.

"Still, there they have a lot of food preservation with salting, with smoking foods. Here we refrigerate our foods. So the environmental causes are less, but still having a lot or charcoal grilled meats, salted foods things like that, can increase the risk factors," Jain said.