Over 18 million new cancer cases likely this year... 9.6 million to die

UNITED NATIONS: More than 18 million new cases of cancer are expected this year and it is estimated that 9.6 million people will die from various forms of the disease in 2018, the UN'S International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said.

According to IARC, a specialised cancer agency of the World Health Organisation, the disease is a growing global health threat. One in five men and one in six women worldwide develop cancer during their lifetime, and one in eight men and one in 11 women die from it, IARC'S Global Cancer Observatory said on Wednesday in its first report since 2012.

"These new figures highlight that much remains to be done to address the alarming rise in the cancer burden globally and that prevention has a key role to play," IARC Director Christopher Wild said.

"Efficient prevention and early detection policies must be implemented urgently to complement treatments in order to control this devastating disease across the world," Wild added.

In India, the number of new cancer cases in 2018 among male and female and in all ages stood at 1,157,294. Of this, 587,249 were women diagnosed with cancer.

The risk of developing cancer before the age of 75 years was 9.81 per cent for males and 9.42 per cent for females. The number of cancer deaths in the country stood at 784,821. The risk of dying from cancer before the age of 75 years was 7.34 per cent for males and 6.28 per cent for females. The top five most frequent cancers for both male and female in India are breast, lip and oral cavity, cervix and uteri, lung, stomach.

The report said that globally the increasing cancer burden is due to several factors, including population growth and ageing as well as the changing prevalence of certain causes of cancer linked to social and economic development.

This is particularly true in rapidly growing economies, where a shift is observed from cancers related to poverty and infections to cancers associated with lifestyles more typical of industrialized countries, it said.

Effective prevention efforts may explain the observed decrease in incidence rates for some cancers, such as lung cancer and cervical cancer. However, the new data show that most countries are still faced with an increase in the absolute number of cases being diagnosed and requiring treatment and care.