DOHA: Globally, the number of cancer cases diagnosed yearly will increase from 7.6 million to 11.4 million between 2005 and 2030, say experts.
This emergence of cancer globally as a threat to public health will be focused during a lecture to be held at the Women’s Hospital, Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), this week.
The lecture will be the sixth in a series bringing the latest medical research to Qatar to improve patient care, and will be held on Tuesday.
The upcoming Academic Health System lecture will be given by Professor John Bartlett, Professor of Medicine, Global Health and Nursing, Duke University Medical Center, US (also known as Duke Medicine). Duke Medicine is one of the leading academic health systems in the world.
Qatar is implementing a National Cancer Strategy built on the best international evidence to address cancer across the health and education sectors and through the full continuum of services from awareness through to prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment and care.
“Worldwide, between 2005 and 2030 the number of cancer cases diagnosed yearly will increase from 7.6 million to 11.4 million. Almost 80 percent of the new cases in 2030 will be in low, or middle-income countries,” said Professor Bartlett. “Globally, the greatest number of deaths from cancer is due to breast cancer in women, and lung cancer in men. In cancer prevention, the best outcomes are offered by screening and early diagnosis and almost 30 percent of all deaths from cancer could be avoided by changing key factors that increase a person’s risk of cancer.”
Key factors responsible for these increases may include increased life expectancy and lifestyle risk factors such as smoking, unhealthy diets and lack of physical activity and exposure to toxic environments.
“The main challenges for global cancer include health promotion for cancer prevention among the public, screening and early detection, improved treatments and palliative care. There are extraordinary opportunities to address each of these factors, and thereby impact public health and suffering due to cancer,” said Professor Bartlett.
“There are also fantastic research opportunities from understanding how cancer cells are created to studying methods to promote the integration of research findings into the delivery of care.”
The Peninsula
