Cancer cases could reach 25 million in two decades.
AB Wire
Cancer cases are surging in many low-and middle-income countries, partially due to increases in risk factors that are typical of Western countries, a new study has found.
Improved screening and detection efforts, combined with decreases in risk factors like smoking, have reduced the incidence and mortality rates from several common types of cancer in many high-income countries, the researchers found.
“This study gives us important clues about the epidemiology of cancer and gives us some ideas about what we could further investigate to improve global public health,” said one of the researchers Lindsey Torre from the American Cancer Society.
The increase in many low-and middle-income countries is partially due to increases in risk factors that are typical of Western countries, researchers said, according to a report in Daily News and Analysis.
Worldwide, an estimated 14.1 million new cancer cases and 8.2 million cancer deaths occurred in 2012, they said.
Researchers analyzed incidence and mortality data for the years 2003-2007 from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) CancerMondial database and mortality data through 2012 from the WHO Cancer Mortality database.
Study data reflected 50 countries selected to represent various regions of the world.
The researchers noted developments across eight major kinds of cancer, which accounts for 60% of total global cases and deaths.
Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide in countries of all income levels, and the number of cancer cases and deaths is expected to grow rapidly as populations grow, age, and adopt lifestyle behaviors that increase cancer risk, the researchers said.
The report detailed trends in breast, prostate, colorectal, lung, esophageal, stomach, liver and cervical cancers.
The findings were published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.
The Press Trust of India reported that cancer cases worldwide are forecast to rise by 75 per cent and reach close to 25 million in the next two decades, citing a talk by Chancellor of Avanishilingam University for Women, Dr. P R Krishnakumar, on Monday.
In his address to the 3-day International Conference on ‘cutting edge science in Cancer Research,’ Krishnakumar, also Managing Director of Arya Vaidya Pharmacy, said the global cancer burden was growing at an alarming pace and in 2030 alone, about 21.7 million new cancer cases and 13 million cancer deaths are expected to occur, simply due to the growth and aging of the population.
The conference is being organised by the University in collaboration with Ohio State University, USA. Stating that approximately 11 million people were diagnosed with cancer every year and seven million die of this disease, with half of them occuring in developing countries where cancer was rapidly increasing, he said today cancer accounts for about one in every seven deaths worldwide more than HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined.