Cancer continues to be classified as one of the most dangerous diseases and the prospects are far from satisfactory. According to a world report by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the disease will spread throughout the world, particularly in developing countries
Scientist report increasing cancer cases worldwide.
Statistics show that nearly 22 million new cases are expected each year by 2030 compared to 14 million in 2012.
Professor Bernard Stewart, co-author of the report published by the International Agency for Research on Cancer decries the increasing statistics
“That’s a huge increase. It is nobody’s fault, it is the inevitable consequence, to a certain extent, of a better survival of humans, and also, in a way, of the disappearance of diseases that killed people prematurely.
Despite major progress in proposed treatments, deaths are also expected to increase from 8.2 million in 2012 to 13 million in 2030, due to poor knowledge application.
“We are making extremely slow progress despite the immense knowledge we have and the development of new agents. New cancer drugs can prolong patients’ survival but not really cure them, because tumours become resistant. So our main hope with cancer is to prevent the disease more than to treat it.” he adds.
Smoking, eating habits and infections due to certain diseases are the main vectors of cancer in the world.
Overall, men are slightly more affected than women with 53% of cancer cases and 57% of deaths in 2012.
70% of deaths currently occur in Africa, Asia and Latin America, a trend that is not expected to reverse in the coming years.
As the world celebrates world cancer day on January 4, the report recommends that new treatments should not be enough, but that prevention should be developed on a large scale.
Among the measures recommended are vaccination campaigns against hepatitis B but also against certain papillomaviruses, the cause of cervical cancer.
Produced with the help of 250 experts from 40 countries, the more than 600-page “World Cancer Report 2014” reviews the main data available.
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