Over the next 20 years the number of deaths attributed to cancer in the world will double. The main reason for this rise is the rapid growth in the number of cases of cancer appearing in less developed countries, where tobacco use is increasing. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), by 2010 cancer will be the leading cause of death worldwide. The incidence of cancer had already doubled worldwide between 1975 and 2000, although during that period scarcely 15% of the cases occurred in underdeveloped countries. Today, however, half of the newly diagnosed cases and a third of deaths occur in low-income countries. And this growth trend is expected to continue.
According to the forecasts in the aforementioned report:
By 2030, there will be 27 million new cancer cases and 17 million annual deaths from cancer worldwide. In 2007 there were 12 million new cases of cancer and just under 8 million deaths.
The rate at which new cancers are diagnosed and the number of deaths is expected to grow by 1% per year.
China, Russia, and India will have the highest increases in cancer cases and cancer deaths.
Smoking and other lifestyle factors such as obesity will become an epidemic responsible for the growth in the number of cancer cases and cancer deaths.
Poorer countries
The data contrast with the situation in developed countries, such as the United States, where cancer incidence and cancer deaths have fallen for the first time in a decade. This shows that cancer has ceased to be a disease commonly found in industrialised countries and that it is extending to low-income countries. Every year cancer kills more people than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.
Smoking: the main cause
The increase in smoking, which began in the second half of the eighties and in the early nineties, is the main cause of this dramatic increase, which will peak in 2030.
There are now around 1.3 billion smokers world-wide.
12% of cancer cases in low-income countries can be attributed to tobacco use and this figure is expected to rise substantially in coming years.
Types of cancer
Lung cancer is the most deadly; it kills more people than any other type of cancer.
Breast cancer is also on the rise in low-income countries, where incidence rates have increased by up to 5% a year.
Cervical cancer, which is largely preventable and treatable in industrialised world, continues to be the leading cause of cancer deaths among women living in poorer countries, particularly in Africa.
Europe and Spain
Cancer is one of the most common diseases in Spain and in the European Union. In the European Union, 1,300,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed each year, and there are 838,000 deaths.
In Spain cancer is the leading cause of death: there are approximately 95,000 deaths a year, which is 25% of the total number of deaths. In 2005, 96,499 people died in Spain from cancer: 60,701 men and 35,798 women, or, to put it another way, one in every three men and one in every five women die of cancer. Cancer is the leading cause of death among men and the second among women, after cardiovascular diseases.
The most deadly cancer is lung cancer (approximately 19,000 deaths a year), followed by cancer of the colon, haematological tumours, breast cancer, stomach cancer, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, bladder cancer and gynaecological tumours.
The number of new cases of cancer continues to grow; however, due to increasingly early diagnosis and the treatments being applied, world-wide death rates are dropping.
The mortality rates for some tumours is falling, although women's lung cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphomas, myelomas, melanomas, ovarian and pancreatic cancer continue their rising trend. Mortality due to cancer among Spanish women is the lowest in Europe and among the lowest in the world. However, the rates of mortality are higher than the European average for cancer of the mouth, stomach, liver, larynx, lung and bladder, all of which are linked, to a greater or lesser extent, to the habit of smoking.
Cancer worldwide
Breast cancer rates in Japan, Singapore, and Korea have doubled or tripled in the last forty years.
Throughout Asia, the rate of stomach cancer is high due to the lack of refrigeration for food. In the United States, following the introduction of refrigerators, the incidence of stomach cancer fell by almost 90%.
Chewing tobacco is one of the major cancer risk factors in India.
One in three cancers in low-income countries is caused by chronic infections such as hepatitis B, human papillomavirus (HPV), and AIDS (HIV). Nowadays, these tumours are preventable and in some cases, treatable. Unfortunately, vaccinations and treatments are not available in these countries.