One-Third of Cancer Deaths Could Be
Avoided
By Rita Jenkins
Of the seven million worldwide cancer deaths
reported in 2001, 35 percent were attributable
to nine well-known behavioral and environmental
risk factors, according to an analysis published
in The Lancet.
Researchers from the Harvard School
of Public Health (HSPH) and a network
of collaborators made the calculation
by estimating mortality for 12 types of
cancer linked to the nine risk factors
in seven World Bank regions for that year.
They also looked at how the risks, and
the cancers they cause, were distributed
over the regions of the world. This is
the first assessment of the role of health
risks in cancer deaths globally and regionally.
Risk Factor Analysis
The researchers analyzed data from the
Comparative Risk Assessment project and
World Health Organization databases to
determine the level of risk factors in
different world regions, and separately
for men and women.
They also considered how hazardous each
risk factor might be. The analysis covered
all high-income countries together, and
separated low-income and middle-income
countries into geographical regions: East
Asia and Pacific, South Asia, Europe and
Central Asia, Latin America and Caribbean,
Middle East and North Africa, and Sub-Saharan
Africa.
The nine risk factors:
- overweight and obesity
- low fruit and vegetable intake
- physical inactivity
- smoking
- alcohol use
- unsafe sex
- urban air pollution
- indoor smoke from household use of coal
- contaminated injections in healthcare
settings
Alcohol, Smoking Play Large Roles
More than one in every three of the seven
million deaths from cancer worldwide were
caused by these nine potentially modifiable
risk factors (2.43 million), the researchers
found, with alcohol and smoking playing
large roles in all income levels and regions.
Worldwide, the nine risk factors caused
1.6 million cancer deaths among men and
830,000 among women. Smoking alone is
estimated to have caused 21 percent of
deaths from cancer worldwide.
In high-income countries, these nine
risks caused 760,000 cancer deaths. Smoking,
alcohol, and overweight and obesity were
the most important causes of cancer in
these nations.
In low- and middle-income regions, the
nine risks caused 1.67 million cancer
deaths. Smoking, alcohol consumption,
and low fruit and vegetable intake were
the leading risk factors for these deaths.
Sexual transmission of human papillomavirus
is the leading risk factor for cervical
cancer in women in low- and middle-income
countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan
Africa and South Asia, where access to
cervical screening is also limited.
Among low- and middle-income regions,
Europe and Central Asia had the highest
proportion of death from cancer from the
nine risk factors studied; 39 percent
of 825,000 cancer deaths in the low- and
middle-income countries of Europe and
Central Asia were caused by these risks.
The effects were even larger among men;
one half of cancer deaths among men in
the low- and middle-income countries of
Europe and Central Asia were caused by
these nine risks.
Behaviors and Environments
"These results clearly show that
many globally important types of cancer
are preventable by changes in lifestyle
behaviors and environmental interventions,"
comments Majid Ezzati, senior author of
the study and assistant professor of international
health at HSPH.
"To win the war against cancer,
we must focus not just on advances in
biomedical technologies, but also on technologies
and policies that change the behaviors
and environments that cause those cancers,"
he adds.
The study, "Causes of cancer in
the world: comparative risk assessment
of nine behavioral and environmental risk
factors," was funded by the National
Institute on Aging and by the Disease
Control Priorities Project.
Copyright 2006 Daily News Central
About The Author
Rita Jenkins is a health journalist for
Daily News Central, an online publication
that delivers breaking news and reliable
health information to consumers, healthcare
providers and industry professionals:
http://www.dailynewscentral.com.
