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Esophageal Cancer Rates in Men Increase by Nearly 50% in 30 Years
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New statistics from Cancer Research UK show that esophageal cancer rates in men have increased from 2,700 new cases in the early 1980s to 5,740 in 2012, representing a nearly 50% increase from 15 to 23 cases per 100,000 people after adjusting for population growth, according to a press release.
Esophageal cancer rates have also increased in women by about 10% with 2,802 new cases (9 per 100,000 people), the release said.
“These new statistics show a continuing rise in esophageal cancer rates — especially in men,” Rebecca Fitzgerald, MD, Cancer Research UK esophageal cancer expert at the University of Cambridge, said in the release. “This is especially concerning as esophageal cancer can be notoriously hard to treat.”
Rebecca Fitzgerald
According to the release, statistics also show that esophageal cancer is the sixth most common cause of cancer-related mortality in the UK with an estimated 5,200 men dying from esophageal cancer in 2012.
“It’s worrying to see how rapidly the number of men getting esophageal cancer is rising,” Claire Knight, PhD, health information manager at Cancer Research UK, said in the release. “But there are many things people can do to help cut their chances of getting the disease. We know that almost 90% of cases are preventable — stopping smoking, cutting down on alcohol, eating a balanced diet and maintaining a healthy weight will all help reduce your risk.”
Cancer Research UK held an International Symposium on Oesophageal Cancer at the University of Oxford June 6 and 7 to address these increases in esophageal cancer rates and the need for greater research, the release said. Furthermore, Fitzgerald and colleagues are currently recruiting for the BEST-2 trial, which aims to test the cytosponge for screening for Barrett’s esophagus.
“The good news is we’re making great strides in the early detection of the disease,” Fitzgerald said. “We’re developing a simple way to diagnose a group of people at high risk — those with Barrett’s esophagus — by asking them to swallow a sponge to test for the disease. If we can pick up Barrett’s esophagus in more people, it could mean we can stop the disease becoming cancer. Catching it early is absolutely critical to survival.”
Disclosure: Fitzgerald reports having received programmatic funding from the Medical Research Council and infrastructure support from the Biomedical Research Center and the Experimental Medicine Center, and she and other researchers are named inventors on patents pertaining to the Cytosponge and related assays.