Cancer rates set to increase six times faster in women than men
UK - Cancer rates will increase nearly six times faster in women than in men over the next 20 years, with obesity partly to blame, experts predict. As several of the obesity-related cancer types only affect women, the growing number of people of both sexes who are severely overweight is likely to have a greater effect on incidence of the disease among women, according to the analysis by Cancer Research UK.
Cases of ovarian, cervical and oral cancers are predicted to rise the most. Rates will rise by around 0.5% for men and 3% for women, meaning an estimated 4.5 million women and 4.8 million men will be diagnosed with cancer by 2035. The figures were released on the same day as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) announced that it was recommending that the breast cancer drug Palbociclib should not be routinely funded on the NHS in England.
Charities decried the decision by the drugs watchdog, stressing the importance of developing and supporting more treatments to help women to survive, but they also urged women to change their lifestyles to minimize their risk.
Cancer Research UK’s chief executive Sir Harpal Kumar said: “These new figures reveal the huge challenge we continue to face, both in the UK and worldwide. Research is at the heart of finding ways to reduce cancer’s burden and ensure more people survive, particularly for hard-to-treat cancers where the outlook for patients is still bleak.
We need to keep working hard to reduce the devastating impact cancer can have on so many families. The latest figures show that more than 8 million people die from cancer each year across the world. More people die from cancer than Aids, malaria and tuberculosis put together. With more investment into research, we hope to make big improvements over the next 20 years in diagnosing the disease earlier and improving and developing treatments so that by 2034, three in four people will survive their disease.”
Professor Kevin Fenton, the director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England, said: “The top things we can all do to prevent and reduce the risk of cancer are quitting smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, being physically active and attending cancer screening when invited.”
In draft guidance explaining its reasoning for its advice on Palbociclib, which is made by Pfizer, the drug watchdog said that a full course of treatment costs £79,560. The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), with its partner The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, led a major clinical trial of Palbociclib. “If the manufacturer, Nice, and NHS England can find a way of making this treatment available for patients, they will substantially improve the lives of patients with breast cancer.”
(TheGuardian.com)