About ten million people die from cancer every year. These deaths include 2.3 million premature deaths in women under 70 years of age. This is the result of a current study by an international team of scientists, which has now been published in the medical journal ‘Lancet’. In women alone, 800,000 cancer deaths could be avoided through optimal medical care.
“Cancer is one of the leading causes of death and is among the top three causes of premature death (age group under 70) among women in almost every country in the world. The new analysis shows that of the 2.3 million women who die from cancer each year, 1.5 million could be saved by avoiding risk factors or early diagnosis. At the same time, approximately 800,000 of these deaths could be prevented annually if women had access to optimal medical care,” wrote the globally respected medical journal.
Avoidance through lifestyle changes
In 2020, a total of 5.3 million people worldwide died prematurely – that is, under the age of 70 – from cancer. Malignant diseases can largely be avoided through lifestyle changes.
Alcohol as one of the main risk factors
But for women this is apparently underestimated worldwide. “In 2020, approximately 1.3 million women of all ages died due to the four leading risk factors for cancer: tobacco use, alcohol, obesity and infections. However, too little attention is paid to this problem in relation to cancer in women. For example, a 2019 study in Britain found that only 19 percent of women who had undergone breast cancer screening knew that alcohol was a major risk factor for breast cancer,” according to the Lancet.
Lung or colon cancer also affects women
The healthcare system, medicine and society often have wrong ideas about cancer in women. “Discussions about malignancies in women often focus on cancers that only affect women – such as breast cancer or cervical cancer. But every year, around 300,000 women under the age of 70 die from lung cancer, and another 160,000 women die from colon cancer: these are two of the three most common causes of cancer death in women worldwide,” said Isabelle Soerjomataram, deputy head of the Department of Cancer Epidemiology International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), quoted in a press release.
The epidemiological situation is clear, as Verna Vanderpuye, co-chair of the Lancet committee that authored the new report, explained: “While men have a higher risk of developing cancers that affect both sexes, women have about the same risk of cancer as all malignant diseases are considered together. 48 percent of all cancer cases and 44 of all resulting deaths occur among women. Of the three million adults diagnosed with a malignancy under the age of 50 in 2020, two-thirds were women.”
A million orphans
The consequences of discrimination against women when it comes to cancer are catastrophic: according to the report, approximately one million children worldwide are left orphaned every year due to cancer in young and middle-aged women. In many regions around the world, women continue to have poorer access to prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment of malignant diseases. This is where social disadvantages, lower incomes and burdens on family and loved ones come together. Many cancers in women are diagnosed too late, because in many parts of the world they often do not have enough time to take care of their health.
Source: Krone
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