Uptick in cancer rate
SOARING NUMBERS: DISEASE BURDEN IS GROWING AROUND THE WORLD
Medical condition remains one of the world’s biggest killers, says the WHO.
With about 10 million deaths and nearly 20 million new cases in 2022, cancer remains one of the world’s biggest killers, according to a report by the World Health Organisation.
Here are five key facts about the disease, as the world marked World Cancer Day yesterday.
It is an international day marked on 4 February every year to raise awareness of cancer and to encourage its prevention, detection and treatment.
▶ Cancer is a disease that causes abnormal cells to multiply and spread. It affects humans and virtually all other animal species, with traces found in human skeletons dating from prehistoric times.
There are more than 100 types of cancer, each with its own diagnosis and treatment. About one in nine men and one in 12 women will die from cancer.
An estimated 9.74 million people died from cancer in 2022, and 19.96 million new cases were recorded.
This was according to a report by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) published on Thursday.
On average, one in five people will develop some form of cancer in their lifetime, with the number of global cases growing by over 25% between 2009 and 2019, according to the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
The IARC predicted that the number of new cases of cancer recorded in 2040, would be 50% higher than the 19.96 million recorded in 2022.
In 2050, the number is predicted to be 77% higher than in 2022.
“There is a large increase in the cancer burden,” said Dr Freddie Bray, head of the IARC’s cancer surveillance unit.
▶ The three most common cancers are lung cancer (12.4% of new cases in 2022), breast cancer (11.6%) and colon cancer (9.6%).
In terms of deaths, lung cancer is by far the deadliest and accounts for 18.7% of deaths. This is followed by colon cancer (9.3%), liver cancer (7.8%) and breast cancer (6.9%).
▶ About half of the new cases in 2022 were in Asia, which is home to more than half of the world’s population.
What is more surprising is that Europe – including Russia – accounted for a quarter of all the new cases, although it represents under 10% of the world’s inhabitants.
Bray said: “Many countries in Europe have among the highest incidence rates of common cancers worldwide such as prostate and female breast.” By contrast, fewer than 6% of cancer cases in 2022 were in Africa, home to one in five people but which has the youngest population in the world. Africa’s youthfulness can explain the low prevalence of many types of cancer, apart from cervical cancer, which is particularly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa.
▶ Three-quarters of all the new cancer cases in 2022 were among people aged over 55. People under 29 accounted for fewer than 3% of the cases, despite accounting for nearly 50% of the world’s population.
The risk of cancer rises steeply with age because cells in the body become damaged over time and start to behave differently, leading to cancer in some cases.
Some of the damage happens by chance but some is caused by external factors, such as drinking, smoking and exposure to UV radiation.
▶ Cancer kills more men than women. Men account for 56 out of every 100 cancer deaths, compared with 44 for women.
The fact that men are bigger smokers, which makes them more at risk of lung cancer – the deadliest of all cancer types – is chiefly blamed for the disparity.
But women “endure almost the same burden of cancer overall and disproportionately so at younger ages”, said Bray. –
Women endure almost the same burden of cancer