14 DAY TRIAL // It has just entered in the top of human slayers: over 12 million cases of cancer have been diagnosed in the world in 2007, and 7,6 million persons will die because of this: 20.000 daily, according to a recently published report of the American Cancer Society. The most common cancers are that of lung and breast, no matter if the patients come from developing or developed countries.
The reports shows that 5,4 million new cases and 2,9 million deaths come from developed countries, while 6,7 million cases and 4,7 million deaths occur in developing countries. These numbers are based on data bank Globocan 2002, gathered by International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
In developing countries, the most common man cancers are of prostate, lung and colon. Amongst female cancers, the most frequent are breast, colon and lung. In developing countries, the most frequent man cancers are of lung, stomach and leaver, while for women - breast, uterus and stomach.
In developing countries, two of the most frequent cancers (stomach, leaver and uterus) have an infectious origin. About 15% of all cancers worldwide are associated with infections, but in the developing countries, the rate of cancer of infectious origin (26%) is thrice than in the developed countries (8%).
"The burden of the cancer is growing in the developing countries, because child mortality and infectious diseases are decreasing, and more persons live to the older ages, when cancer incidence grows", said co-author Ahmedin Jemal, epidemiologist at American Cancer Society.
"The frequency of the cancer is increasing in the developing countries also because an increasing part of the population adopts a western lifestyle: smoking, more sedentarism and consume of more saturated fat rich foods", he added.
The report shows that tobacco smoking killed 5 million persons in 2000, of which 30% got cancer (1,42 million). 850.000 developed lung cancer. Overall, tobacco killed about 100 million people during the 20th century and it will kill over one billion during the 21th century, mainly from developing countries, as 84% of the world's 1,3 billion smokers live there.
Just in China, there are 350 million smokers, more than the US population. If the current tendency maintains, there will be 2 billion smokers by 2030, and half of them will die of this.
