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Cancer burden 'on the rise'

17/12/2007

Over 20,000 people will have died every day from cancer in 2007, new figures suggest.

Research from the American Cancer Society (ACS) estimates cancer will have killed over 7.6 million by new year, of whom nearly two in three will have occurred in developing countries.

Today's report from the ACS says higher infection rates are responsible for cancers of the lung, stomach and liver in men and breast, cervix uteri and stomach in women being dominant in developing countries.

In total 4.7 million cancer deaths in 2007 will have come from these regions, compared to 2.9 million deaths in economically developed countries.

"The burden of cancer is increasing in developing countries as deaths from infectious diseases and childhood mortality decline and more people live to older ages when cancer most frequently occurs," Ahmedin Jemal of the ACS said.

"This cancer burden is also increasing as people in the developing countries adopt western lifestyles such as cigarette smoking, higher consumption of saturated fat and calorie-dense foods, and reduced physical activity."

The ACS report highlights the "increasing toll" of tobacco, warning that five million people around the world died from tobacco use in 2000.

It says 30 per cent of these deaths were caused by cancer and predicted that the rise of smoking in countries like China will result in the avoidable deaths of over one billion people in the 21st century.

"Halting the rapid diffusion of tobacco consumption to developing countries is an urgent global health priority," the report says.