Global Cancer

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Anchor lead: What does a new global analysis of cancer cases tell us? Elizabeth Tracey reports

The latest Global Burden of Disease study tabulates different types of cancer experienced by people worldwide, and shows a rather dramatic increase in cancer incidence overall. That’s according to William Nelson, director of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.

Nelson: In 2017 24 and a half million new cancer cases, 16.8 million were those we don’t count – non-melanoma skin cancers, the basal cell and squamous cell cancers, 17 million more or less serious cancers, 9.6 million deaths, and they estimate 223.5 million disability adjusted life years, that accounts for feeling sick or being treated so that you’re not engaged in your life more fully. Cases increased by 33% and so cancer is on the rise.  :33

Nelson says some of the rise is due to better detection and imaging methods but notes that cancer risk increases with advancing age also, so as more of us live longer some of us will develop cancer. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.