A new American Cancer Society report estimates that there will be over 12 million new cancer cases and 7.6 million cancer deaths (about 20,000 cancer deaths a day) worldwide in 2007.
The estimate comes from the first-ever Global Cancer Facts & Figures, the latest addition to the American Cancer Society's family of Facts & Figures publications. The report estimates that 5.4 million of those cancers and 2.9 million deaths will occur in economically developed countries, while 6.7 million cases and 4.7 million deaths will occur in economically developing countries. These projections were based on incidence and mortality data from the Globocan 2002 database compiled by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
In economically developed countries, the three most commonly diagnosed cancers in men are prostate, lung, and colorectal cancer. Among women, they are breast, colorectal, and lung cancer. In contrast, the three most commonly diagnosed cancers in economically developing countries are cancers of the lung, stomach, and liver in men, and cancers of the breast, cervix uteri, and stomach in women. In developing countries, two of the three leading cancers in men (stomach and liver) and in women (cervix and stomach) are related to infection. In both economically developed and developing countries, the three most common cancer sites are also the three leading causes of cancer death.
Approximately 15 percent of all cancers worldwide are infection-related, with the percentage of cancers related to infection about three times higher in developing than in developed countries (26 percent versus 8 percent). “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,” said Ahmedin Jemal, PhD, American Cancer Society epidemiologist and co-author of the report. “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.”