Cancer Director urged to focus more on cancer prevention

According to Dr. Christopher Wild , director of the WHO's cancer institute , 70 percent of global cancer deaths is now in emerging markets in Africa , Asia , and America

 There are approximately 14 million new cases of cancer per year . That number is expected to increase to 22 million per year in the next two decades . Are not we getting better in treatment and survival ?

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Christopher Wild : I think both aspects are correct , we are actually getting better at treatment , especially for some types of cancer . What we see here is the result of population growth and aging , particularly in the low and middle income countries . As cancer is age-related diseases , and population changes , the number of cancer is increasing globally , especially in countries of low and middle income .Dr. Christopher P WildDr. ChristopherWild : You cite Africa , Asia , Central and South American countries where up to 70 percent of cancer deaths in the world are recorded .Yes. Those regions also have very high numbers of people , they are the most densely populated areas , but that a combination of demographic change and the aging process . But they are also the same countries where the survival , if you develop cancer , is much worse : Access to cancer services are not as good as in high-income countries .

 Dr. Christopher P WildThis is our main conclusion of the 2014 World Cancer Report : we need to complement the efforts that have been made to improve the treatment with more focus on prevention . We have learned a lot about the causes of cancer , and also how to detect early , but we do not always see that the information is translated into effective cancer control policy at the national level .Some highly effective vaccine has also been developed that can prevent liver cancer and cervical cancer , which is associated with a particular virus . There is a lot of information about the causes of cancer . We just need to have this understood , not only by society but also by policy makers and those planning cancer control at the national level .what we lack is actually a study in several areas . For example , if we take the vaccine for human papilloma virus , there are two problems : the first is to get the vaccine also for countries where cervical cancer is common , namely , sub - Saharan Africa , parts of Southeast Asia , Latin America . The price is now down , so that increasingly occur .

Preventable forms of cancerThe second concern is , we need more research on how we actually integrate this into preventive health services , especially in developing countries . Often we have something that we know in principle will reduce the risk of cancer but we need to understand how best to implement them in terms of operations in order to have an effect on the population .International Agency for Research on Cancer ( IARC ) is the specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization . Dr Christopher Wild IARC has been a director since January 2009 .