Global cancer cases surpass 14 million
Mankind has been making huge advances in medicine over the past few decades, yet they are still some burning issues that have not yet been resolved. Undoubtedly, one of them is cancer. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the number of people diagnosed with cancer in the world each year has reached numbers over 14 million.
The data for 2012 shows a marked rise to 12.7 million, while deaths, have also increased, going from 7.2 million in 2011 to 8.2 million in 2012.
WHO says that the increase in cancer patients can be attributed to a rapid shift in lifestyles, especially in developing countries, to more closely reflect industrialised countries. Rising levels of obesity and an increased number of smokers have also contributed to the rise.
WHO has also described a ‘sharp rise’ in world breast cancer. Both the incidence and mortality have increased sharply since 2008. The condition is now most common type of cancer affecting women in over than 140 countries around the world.
Dr David Forman, from the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, said: “Breast cancer is also a leading cause of cancer death in the less developed countries of the world.”
“This is partly because a shift in lifestyles is causing an increase in incidence, and partly because clinical advances to combat the disease are not reaching women living in these regions.”
The WHO says there is an ‘urgent need’ for advances to be made in prevention, detection, diagnoses and treatment to be made, especially in developing nations, where the situation is close to being critical due to the lack of sufficient healthcare to cover the entire population.
The UN agency does not predict that things will get better either, saying that world cancer cases will soar to over 19 million by 2025, a predicted 35% increase on today’s figures.