Body says cancer cases will rise to 16 million by 2020

onnaedo

May 22, 2015 7:25 PM

It also notes that while there are more cases of prostate cancer being diagnosed than any other cancer, breast cancer is more prevalent in females than other cancers.

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Through the years, cancer casualties have been on the rise and according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the figures are not about to dip as the group has predicted that annual global new cases of cancers are expected to rise from 11 million to 16 million by 2020.

The group further says that 70% of them will come from developing countries.

It also notes that while there are more cases of prostate cancer being diagnosed than any other cancer, breast cancer is more prevalent in females than other cancers.

This was made known by Isa Marte Hussaini, Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Maiduguri, Borno State, while speaking at the public lecture and induction of Fellows of the Nigeria Academy of Science.

According to him, "among the cancers, pancreatic cancer is the deadliest, with mean survival time of six months, followed by glioblastoma multiforme (the most common and most aggressive malignant primary brain tumour in humans), which has an average survival period of 9-12 months,”

He however pointed out that the Cancer Research Project of the university was using scientific techniques to validate the rationale for the use of herbal medications.

According to him, most significant advances that have been made in the management of cancer are in the early stages of detection, adding, “It is imperative to ‘catch’ the cancers before they become malignant and metastasised.”

Pointing out statistics from a screening conducted at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital in 2006, physicians found out that there were more cervical cancer cases among women than breast cancer; while in men, prostate cancer was more prevalent than other cancers.

While the incidence of lung cancer was below 4%.

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