Cancer cases to double by 2030, says report

The number of diagnosed cancer cases will more than double between 2000 and 2030, primarily in poor countries...

The number of diagnosed cancer cases will more than double between 2000 and 2030, primarily in poor countries, the director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer said Tuesday.

Dr Peter Boyle said the reasons for the increase include population growth, increased life expectancy and the transfer of cancer risk factors from the developed world to the developing world. These factors, such as smoking, added to the existing risks in poor countries such as communicable diseases and lack of health care.

In 2000, the agency estimated 11 million new cases of diagnosed cancer worldwide, seven million deaths from cancer and 25 million people living with cancer.

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The agency expects that by the 2030, there will be 27 million cases of cancer, 17 million deaths from cancer and 75 million people living with cancer.

He said new research shows that with time, there is an increasing shift of cancer to poor countries.

A second factor leading to a rise in cancer cases is the increase in life expectancy in most countries, he said.

Both China and India have had continual growth in the number of people reaching older ages, Boyle said. “If you’ve got more old people in the population with the same risks as the younger people, you’re going to have more cases of cancer in the older population,” he said.

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The agency found there are commonly more people in the world who die of cancer than those who die of tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria combined.

Unapproved drug used

Washington: Terminally ill cancer patients in the US are turning to an unapproved drug to extend their lives, says a report in the journal Nature. Dichloroacetate or DCA, has caused cancers to shrink in rats without side-effects. But DCA has a chemical structure that cannot be patented. LAT-WP