Policies and managerial guidelines for national cancer control programs.

Millions of lives could be saved each year if countries made use of existing knowledge and the best cost-effective methods to prevent and treat cancer, according to a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO). Entitled National Cancer Control Programs: Policies and Managerial Guidelines, the WHO report says that one-third of the 10 million new cases of cancer that are diagnosed globally every year can be prevented and that another third can be effectively treated if there is early detection and treatment. For the last third of cases, suffering can be greatly relieved through effective palliative care. Regardless of the resource constraints that a country faces, a well-conceived, well-managed program can improve the national situation as well as the lives of those living with cancer. In many cases, primary prevention, early detection, and palliative care are neglected in favor of treatment-oriented approaches, regardless of whether these approaches are actually cost-effective or whether they improve patients' quality of life. Although cancer has often been regarded principally as a problem of the developed world, of the 10 million new cancer cases each year, 5.5 million of them are in developing countries. Every year, there are more than 6 million cancer deaths, accounting for 12% of all deaths in the world. Over the next 20 years, the number of cancer deaths annually will rise to some 10 million. Contributing to this projected increase in deaths are the growing proportion of elderly people in the world, in whom cancer occurs more frequently than in the young; an overall decrease in deaths from communicable diseases ; the decline in some countries in mortality from cardiovascular diseases; and the rising incidence of certain forms of cancer, especially lung cancer resulting from tobacco use. Among men, lung and stomach cancer are the most common cancers worldwide, while prostate cancer is largely seen in more-developed countries. For women, the most common cancers worldwide are breast and cervical cancer, although cervical cancer is primarily seen in less-developed countries. Lung, colorectal, and stomach cancer are among the five most common cancers for both men and women, in both industrialized and developing countries.