Cancer will kill 13.2 million a year by
2030, UN Says
Cancer will kill more than 13.2 million people a year by
2030, almost double the number who died from the disease in
2008, the United Nations' cancer research agency said.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)
also said that almost 21.4 million new cases of the disease
will be diagnosed annually in 2030.
Launching a new database on global incidences of cancer
in 2008, the latest year for which figures are available, the
IARC said the burden of cancer was shifting from wealthier to
poorer nations. "Cancer is neither rare anywhere in the world,
nor confined to high-resource countries," it said in a
statement.
In total, 7.6 million people died of cancer in 2008 and
there were an estimated 12.7 million new cases diagnosed.
About 56 per cent of new cancer cases worldwide in
2008 were in developing countries and these regions
also accounted for 63 per cent of all cancer deaths, the
data showed.
IARC director Christopher Wild said the data represented
the most accurate available assessment of the global burden
of cancer and would help international health policy
makers develop their responses.
The most commonly diagnosed cancers worldwide in 2008 were
lung cancer, with 1.61 million cases, breast cancer, with 1.38
million, and colorectal cancers, with 1.23 million. The most
common causes of cancer death were lung (1.38 million),
stomach (0.74 million) and liver cancers (0.69 million).
The projection for annual death rates of 13.2 million
and annual diagnosis of 21.4 million were based on
assumptions that underlying rates of cancer would remain the
same over the next two decades, the IARC said.
In Singapore, the Ministry of Health noted that cancer
was responsible for 29.3 per cent of deaths in 2008, making it
the top killer disease in the country.