Cancer patients and cancer mortality are increasing worldwide. According to a report released by CNN in the United States in 2021, 10 million people worldwide died from cancer in 2020. This is the second leading cause of death worldwide, closely following cardiovascular disease, the number one cause of death. The problem is that the number of deaths from cancer is steadily increasing.
The number of cancer patients and cancer deaths on the rise
According to researchers at the University of Washington, the number of new cancer cases in 2019 was regarding 23 million. This is a 26% increase from the 19 million people counted at the time of the 2010 survey. In Korea, cancer has been the number one cause of death for 37 years. According to statistics on the cause of death in 2020 released by Statistics Korea on September 28 last year, 27% of all deaths in Korea in 2020 were due to cancer, and the death rate was 160.1 per 100,000 people.
As such, cancer treatment is one of the active areas of international research. Thanks to this, treatment technology has developed remarkably, and in the past, it was synonymous with an incurable disease, but now it is classified as a disease that can be conquered in the near future. However, the cause of most cancers is still unknown, and the reality is that it is impossible to completely prevent it.
Half of cancer deaths are due to lifestyle
However, it has recently been found that half of all cancer deaths worldwide are caused by preventable cancer-causing factors. According to a paper by researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, which was published in the medical journal The Lancet last Thursday (local time), it was the cause of 44.4% of global cancer deaths in 2019. It was found to be due to preventable risk factors such as smoking, drinking alcohol and being overweight. In addition, 42% of people who are living in a difficult old age due to poor health also failed to control the above preventable risk factors.
IHME Director Chris Murray of the University of Washington, who conducted the study, and researchers used the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) project to determine the link between cancer, the world’s second leading cause of death, and cancer-causing factors. I did my best to find it.
From 2010 to 2019, Dr. Murray studied cancer mortality, 23 types of cancer, and 34 types of cancer-causing factors in 204 countries around the world. As a result, it was found that the causes of cancer deaths caused by cancer-causing factors were bronchial system cancer and lung cancer, regardless of sex, and the cancer mortality rate due to cancer-causing factors increased by 20.4%. According to the survey, cancer mortality was highest in five relatively wealthy and developed regions: Central Europe, East Asia, North America, and southern and western Europe in Latin America.
“This study shows that controlling the preventable factors can significantly reduce the number of cancer deaths that are increasing worldwide,” the researchers said. Therefore, new cancer control strategies including risk factor control, early diagnosis, and effective treatment are needed.”