NEW DELHI: India reported more than 14 lakh new cancer cases and over 9 lakh deaths due to the disease in 2022, said the World Health Organization (WHO).
Breast and cervix cancers were the most frequent ones among Indian women, making up close to 27 and 18 per cent of the new cases.
Among men, cancers of the lip and oral cavity and lung were the most common ones, accounting for 15.6 and 8.5 per cent of the new cases, said the report of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the cancer arm of WHO.
It also calculated that the number of people alive within five years following a cancer diagnosis was nearly 32.6 lakh in India.
The report said that while there were 1413316 cancer cases, there were 916827 deaths.
WHO predicted over 35 million new cancer cases in 2050, a 77% increase from the estimated 20 million cases in 2022, and that deaths will have nearly doubled since 2012 to more than 18 million.
The IARC said tobacco use, alcohol consumption and obesity were key factors behind the increasing incidence of cancer, as well as population ageing and growth.
In India, the risk of developing cancer before turning 75 was calculated to be 10.6 per cent, while the risk of dying from cancer by the same age was found to be 7.2 per cent. Globally, these risks were 20 per cent and 9.6 per cent, respectively.
Globally, the WHO estimated 2 crore new cancer cases and 97 lakh deaths, and about 5.3 crore people were alive within 5 years following a cancer diagnosis. About 1 in 5 people develop cancer in their lifetime, and roughly 1 in 9 men and 1 in 12 women die from the disease, it said.
A majority of countries do not adequately finance priority cancer and palliative (pain-related) care services, as part of universal health coverage (UHC), the WHO said publishing survey results from 115 countries.
The IARC’s estimates showed that 10 types of cancer collectively comprised around two-thirds of new cases and deaths globally in 2022. Their data included 185 countries and 36 cancers.
The analysis found lung cancer to be the most commonly occurring cancer (12.4 per cent of total new cases) and also the leading cause of cancer death, accounting for almost 19 per cent of the total cancer deaths.
Persistent tobacco use in Asia could be a likely reason behind the re-emergence of lung cancer as the most common cancer, the cancer agency said.
Breast cancer in women was the second most commonly occurring one (11.6 per cent of total new cases) and accounted for nearly 7 per cent of the global cancer deaths, the IARC found.
Their figures also showed that cervical cancer was the eighth most commonly occurring cancer globally and the ninth leading cause of cancer death. It was also found to be the most common cancer in women in 25 countries, many of which are in sub-Saharan Africa.
The IARC said that cervical cancer can be eliminated as a public health problem, through the scale-up of the WHO Cervical Cancer Elimination Initiative, whilst acknowledging the varying incidence levels of the disease.
In August 2020, the World Health Assembly adopted the Global Strategy for cervical cancer elimination. The initiative termed the WHO Cervical Cancer Elimination Initiative, urged all countries to reach and maintain an incidence rate of below 4 per 1 lakh women.
To achieve the goal, the UN agency strongly advised fully inoculating 90 per cent of girls with the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine before they turned 15 years old, screening 70 per cent of women by the age of 35 and again by 45, and treating 90 per cent of women with pre-cancer, along with managing 90 per cent of women with invasive cancer.
Each country should meet these 90-70-90 targets by 2030 to get on the path to eliminating cervical cancer within the next century, the WHO said in the initiative. In its interim budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the government's push for cervical cancer vaccination for girls in the age group of 9 to 14 years.
