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Ten updates for World Cancer Day
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Union for International Cancer Control is launching a 3-year campaign today in conjunction with World Cancer Day, observed annually on Feb. 4.
The campaign — which embraces the theme “I Am and I Will” — calls for individuals around the world to make a personal commitment to reduce the global cancer burden, emphasizing that one person’s actions now can impact the future.
Part of the effort focuses on healthy lifestyle choices, such as getting sufficient physical activity, following a healthy diet, protecting themselves from the sun, limiting alcohol and avoiding tobacco.
Other actions include knowing the signs and symptoms of cancer to ensure early detection and treatment, encouraging elected representatives to commit sufficient resources to reduce cancer mortality, and educating others about the impact lifestyle behaviors can have on cancer risk.
Cancer is the second-leading cause of death worldwide. An estimated 9.6 million people die due to malignancy each year, according to WHO, and that number is projected to increase to 13 million by 2030.
Union for International Cancer Control founded World Cancer Day to raise awareness of cancer, as well as to emphasize the importance of prevention, detection and treatment.
In conjunction with the observance, HemOnc Today and Healio.com present the following updates that provide insights into strategies that could help reduce the global cancer burden.
• The overall rate of cancer deaths in the U.S. has declined by 27% during the past 25 years. However, although racial disparities in cancer deaths are slowly narrowing, socioeconomic gaps are widening. Read more.
• A new book explores how six lifestyle factors may help reduce cancer risk, improve quality of life and prolong survival for individuals with cancer. Read more.
• The increasing prevalence of excess body weight, responsible for approximately 3.9% of all cancers worldwide in 2012, is driven by multiple economic and environmental factors and should be addressed through policy actions and other interventions, according to researchers. Read more.
• Obesity during adolescence appeared associated with a fourfold increased risk for pancreatic cancer later in life. Men who were overweight or at the higher end of the normal BMI range also appeared at greater risk for pancreatic cancer risk. Read more.
• HPV vaccination rates among adolescents must increase substantially for the American Cancer Society to achieve its goal of 80% prevalence by 2026, according to study results published in Cancer. Read more.
• Patients who did not adhere to recommended cancer screening tests were significantly more likely to die from other causes, according to research published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Read more.
• Women aged 30 to 39 years with at least one of the three specific risk factors can benefit by starting screening at aged 30 instead of the recommended start of age 40 for average-risk women, according to a presenter at the Radiological Society of North America annual meeting. Read more.
• Cancer is projected to surpass heart disease as the leading cause of death among high-income individuals in the United States by 2020. Read more.
• Researchers from American Cancer Society identified trends in disparities and outcomes for cancer over the last few decades in an effort to highlight the need for better quality care for all individuals with cancer. The data served as a prelude to framing of a national cancer control plan, or blueprint, for the American Cancer Society’s goal of reducing cancer mortality by 2035. Read more.
• The use of screening tests for breast, cervical and colorectal cancer in 2015 remained below Healthy People 2020 targets, according to data recently published in Preventing Chronic Disease. Read more.