The medical journal The Lancet published a report on prostate cancer. Experts are calling for action quickly to avoid 400,000 more deaths per year.
Prostate cancer is already a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide and the journal Prostate Cancer Commission The Lancet predicts that the number of new cases will double between 2020 and 2040.
The Lancet looked at data from 185 countries to see how cases and deaths caused by the disease have changed over time. According to these data, the increase in life expectancy leads to an “inevitable” increase in the number of cases.
3 million cases
Thus, according to the study, cases of prostate cancer should double to reach almost 3 million by 2040 worldwide compared to 1.4 million in 2020.
Until then, some 700,000 people are expected to die each year from this disease, an increase of 85% of deaths compared to 375,000 in 2020, according to British researchers.
Cases are currently highest in Northern and Western Europe, the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, North America and southern Africa.
The Lancet Prostate Cancer Commission paper also analyzes immediate and long-term interventions to mitigate the current and future global impact of the disease.
Act quickly to avoid the worst
The biggest beacon of hope is that technology, empowerment and simple practice change innovations can advance the fight against cancer.
And The Lancet specifies that opportunities are available from the diagnostic pathway to the management of the disease up to an advanced stage. Initiatives that must be implemented urgently “to better prepare patients and health care providers to respond to the current and future burden of prostate cancer”, underlines The Lancet.
Questioned by The Sun newspaper, Professor Nick James, of the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, was in this direction. “We know this increase in cases is coming, so we need to start planning and acting now. Evidence-based interventions, such as improving early detection and education programs, will help save lives in the years to come.”