Global cancer cases on the rise - new data

WHO expressed concern over a sharp rise in breast cancer cases. Photo / Thinkstock

Global cancer cases rose to 14.1 million in 2012, with a "marked increase" in breast cancer diagnoses, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The data released this week shared the latest insight in to cancer incidence, mortality, and prevalence around the world.

According to the report, there were about 8.2 million cancer-related deaths in 2012.

There are approximately 32.6 million people over the age of 15 who have had a cancer diagnosis in the last five years. The most common being lung cancer, breast cancer, and colorectal cancer. However, the most deadly cancers have proven to be of the lung, liver, and stomach.

WHO expressed concern over a sharp rise in breast cancer cases, Medical Daily reported.

In 2012, there were 6.3 million women alive who had been diagnosed with breast cancer within the last five years. Of those, 1.7 million had been diagnosed in 2012. That means the rate of breast cancer increased more than 20 per cent since WHO's 2008 estimates, and the mortality rate has risen 14 percent, the medial website said.

In more developed countries, there is a "rising burden" of cancer, which WHO associates with reproductive, dietary, and hormonal risk factors that come about as a result of rapid societal and economic changes.

"An urgent need in cancer control today is to develop effective and affordable approaches to the early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of breast cancer among women living in less developed countries," said Dr Christopher Wild, director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

"It is critical to bring morbidity and mortality in line with progress made in recent years in more developed parts of the world."

- www.nzherald.co.nz