Death rate from malignant cancer per 100,000 inhabitants in 2004.
Global cancer rates have been increasing primarily due to an aging population and lifestyle changes in the developing world. The most significant risk factor for developing cancer is old age. Although it is possible for cancer to strike at any age, most people who are diagnosed with invasive cancer are over the age of 65. According to cancer researcher Robert A. Weinberg, "If we lived long enough, sooner or later we all would get cancer." Some of the association between aging and cancer is attributed to immunosenescence, errors accumulated in DNA over a lifetime, and age-related changes in the endocrine system.
Some slow-growing cancers are particularly common. Autopsy studies in Europe and Asia have shown that up to 36% of people have undiagnosed and apparently harmless thyroid cancer at the time of their deaths, and that 80% of men develop prostate cancer by age 80. As these cancers, often very small, did not cause the person's death, identifying them would have represented overdiagnosis rather than useful medical care.
The three most common childhood cancers are leukemia (34%), brain tumors (23%), and lymphomas (12%). Rates of childhood cancer have increased between 0.6% per year between 1975 to 2002 in the United States and by 1.1% per year between 1978 and 1997 in Europe.
In the developed world, one in three people will be diagnosed with invasive cancer during their lifetimes. If all people with cancer survived and cancer occurred randomly, the lifetime odds of developing a second primary cancer would be one in nine. However, cancer survivors have an increased risk of developing a second primary cancer, and the odds are about two in nine. About half of these second primaries can be attributed to the normal one-in-nine risk associated with random chance. The increased risk is believed to be primarily due to the same risk factors that produced the first cancer (such as the person's genetic profile, alcohol and tobacco use, obesity, and environmental exposures), and partly due to the treatment for the first cancer, which typically includes mutagenic chemotherapeutic drugs or radiation. Cancer survivors may also be more likely to comply with recommended screening, and thus may be more likely than average to detect cancers.
Global cancer rates have been increasing primarily due to an aging population and lifestyle changes in the developing world. The most significant risk factor for developing cancer is old age. Although it is possible for cancer to strike at any age, most people who are diagnosed with invasive cancer are over the age of 65. According to cancer researcher Robert A. Weinberg, "If we lived long enough, sooner or later we all would get cancer." Some of the association between aging and cancer is attributed to immunosenescence, errors accumulated in DNA over a lifetime, and age-related changes in the endocrine system.
Some slow-growing cancers are particularly common. Autopsy studies in Europe and Asia have shown that up to 36% of people have undiagnosed and apparently harmless thyroid cancer at the time of their deaths, and that 80% of men develop prostate cancer by age 80. As these cancers, often very small, did not cause the person's death, identifying them would have represented overdiagnosis rather than useful medical care.
The three most common childhood cancers are leukemia (34%), brain tumors (23%), and lymphomas (12%). Rates of childhood cancer have increased between 0.6% per year between 1975 to 2002 in the United States and by 1.1% per year between 1978 and 1997 in Europe.
In the developed world, one in three people will be diagnosed with invasive cancer during their lifetimes. If all people with cancer survived and cancer occurred randomly, the lifetime odds of developing a second primary cancer would be one in nine. However, cancer survivors have an increased risk of developing a second primary cancer, and the odds are about two in nine. About half of these second primaries can be attributed to the normal one-in-nine risk associated with random chance. The increased risk is believed to be primarily due to the same risk factors that produced the first cancer (such as the person's genetic profile, alcohol and tobacco use, obesity, and environmental exposures), and partly due to the treatment for the first cancer, which typically includes mutagenic chemotherapeutic drugs or radiation. Cancer survivors may also be more likely to comply with recommended screening, and thus may be more likely than average to detect cancers.
