Breast cancer has overtaken lung cancer as the most common form of the disease, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday. Lung cancer was the most common type for the last two decades, but is now in second place, ahead of colorectal cancer, which is the third most widespread, Andre Ilbawi, a cancer specialist at the WHO, told a UN briefing ahead of World Cancer Day on Thursday.
“The cancer burden is significant and increasing. In 2020, the number of people diagnosed with cancer globally reached 19.3 million, and the number of people dying, increased to 10 million,” Dr. Andre Ilbawi, technical officer at the WHO Cancer Control unit, told reporters ahead of Feb. 4 World Cancer Day. “The biggest and most likely driver of the increased total number of cases is population expansion, improvement in life expectancy and management of other competing health illnesses,” he said. With increasing life expectancy, there comes an increased risk of cancer, he said.
“For the first time, breast cancer now constitutes the most commonly occurring cancer globally,” Andre Ilbawi, a cancer specialist at the WHO, told a UN briefing ahead of World Cancer Day on Thursday. Lung cancer was the most common type for the last two decades, but is now in second place, ahead of colorectal cancer, which is the third most widespread, Ilbawi said.
Ilbawi noted that obesity in women was a common risk factor in breast cancer, and is also driving overall cancer numbers. The coronavirus pandemic is disrupting cancer treatment in about half the countries it surveyed, Ilbawi said, pointing to delays in diagnosis, healthcare workers being under extreme stress and research being impacted.
