A new report from the World Health Organization warns that the number of people diagnosed with cancer each year is expected to surge over the next quarter-century.
The report projects annual cancer diagnoses will climb from about 20 million today to nearly 35 million by 2050.
While some cancers are declining thanks to prevention efforts, experts warn aging populations, rising obesity rates and other risk factors will place unprecedented pressure on health-care systems around the world.
“We need to focus attention on what some people are calling the cancer tsunami,” said Dr. Peter Stotland, chief of surgery and a surgical oncologist at North York General Hospital.
Stotland told Global News the findings mirror what doctors are already seeing in Canada.
“We’re seeing just higher numbers of people coming in with cancer,” he said, pointing to an aging population that is expected to drive increases in lung, prostate and colorectal cancers.
“I think it’s shocking because this is something that we’re seeing on a regional, provincial level and a national level,” he said.
At the same time, doctors are also seeing more young people diagnosed with colorectal cancer.
“We can be seeing two spikes… one in older people and another in younger people with cancer,” he said. “That’s going to put a lot of stress on the health-care system.”
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The WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer estimates cancer cases will increase worldwide over the next 25 years, though the reasons vary by region.
Dr. Isabelle Soerjomataram, a medical doctor and deputy head of the agency’s Cancer Surveillance Branch, said higher-income countries such as Canada will likely see more cases among older adults.
“We are really not equipped to handle this increasing demand,” she said, noting the imbalance between the growing number of cancer patients and the health-care workforce needed to care for them.
The report also found cancer reaches far beyond those diagnosed.
Researchers estimate that while roughly 20 million people receive a cancer diagnosis each year, about 92 per cent of the world’s population is personally affected through a family member, caregiver or close friend.
Toronto resident Nadia Headley knows that impact first hand.
Headley was just 30 years old when she was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer while raising her four-year-old daughter.
“I immediately went into mom mode,” she said, recalling receiving the diagnosis with her daughter in the room.
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“I tried so hard to stay strong in front of my daughter.”
She said explaining cancer to a young child while navigating treatment herself was one of the hardest parts of the experience.
“‘Mommy is not well and the doctors need to fix mommy’s body,'” she remembered telling her daughter. “‘The medication they’re going to give mommy is going to make mommy feel really sick.'”
Today, Headley is cancer-free but continues to live with the long-term effects of treatment, including lymphedema.
“It’s not an open-and-closed case as you might think,” she said. “There are side effects from treatment as well.”
Despite the projections, experts say millions of future cancer cases could still be prevented.
The WHO estimates roughly four in 10 cancers are linked to preventable risk factors such as tobacco use, obesity, physical inactivity, alcohol consumption and certain infections.
Stotland said Canadians can lower their risk through healthy lifestyle choices and benefit from recommended screening programs, including breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screening.
“So many cancers can be picked up with this type of screening,” he said.
For governments, however, both experts say planning must begin now. “Cancer is not going anywhere,” Stotland said.
“Even though we’re curing a lot of cancer, just with our aging population we’re unfortunately going to see increases in the number of cancer patients seeking treatment. We need to plan for this.”
–with files from Katherine Ward, Global News
Loree, you are 100% correct. Billions and billions of dollars worldwide spent on research but after 70 years, still no cure. Too many businesses would collapse and people would be out of work if a cure was found. Too much money involved to stop anything.
I have always said and will continue to say, they know the answer to cancer out there. Problem is too many drug companies will fold. There is too much money to lose if they tell us they solved the cancer issue.
Who cares what government or their agents say? They can all go away.
WHO fear mongering again. Global making it worse. Title should be WHO predicts testing will find more benign cases of Cancer that did not need to be found.
go looking for something and you will probably find more than if you just find the important ones. Nothing to worry about at all.
It is like measles… once it was a natural childhood disease. Now it has ‘outbreaks’ of 15. Or Covid, which is a type of annual flu.
Others are right, this is to sell test kits, or vaccines, or treatments, not about our health at all.
Pfizer and Moderne have nothing to do with this… right?
Hmmmm wonder why
Sun will rise tommorow and is expected to set later in the day, similar repeating phenomenon will occur until the rain will overshadow predictions leading to mass confusion.
Cancer tsunami, What a dumb term. Try harder global.
WHO promotes an injection which they encourage everyone to take calling it “safe and effective”. The injection does not do what they promised. Then the same organization states they expect cancers to increase. Really, what a surprise… to bad so sad all you lollipops who followed “the science” and believed “the experts”.
Cancers are too much of a cash cow for too many companies and individuals that a cure, if ever found, ( or if it already has) would get buried. Companies do not want to be “Kodak’s” as what happened when digital photography came about. Businesses and corporations in the film and development areas were gone on less than a year. Now we have the fear mongers out and about drumming up business for the next 50 years.
Get those yearly physical exams with the full blood tests to catch something early on.
I always found it funny that people ignore the huge amounts of vehicle exhaust but focus on a tiny bit of cigarette smoke just because they can smell cigarette smoke.
Vehicle exhaust contains sulfur oxides, ozone, unburned hydrocarbons, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein, nitrogen oxides, etc, etc.
Cigarette smoke is organic material being burnt.