Cancer on Rise in Developing Nations, WHO Says

Cancer cases are expected to double in the world’s developing nations within the next quarter of a century, according to a report released Sunday by the World Health Organization.

Moreover, heart disease and stroke--already the leading causes of death in wealthier nations--will begin to rise in poorer countries, adding to the toll already inflicted there by unconquered infectious diseases, the United Nations health organization warned in its report.

These “diseases of affluence”--so called because they often result from lifestyle choices--will create a “double burden” in the coming years for many countries where people are still struggling to control communicable illnesses, the WHO report said.

Worldwide, cases of diabetes are expected to more than double by 2025, from about 135 million to 300 million, the report also found.

Summing up the report’s various findings, Dr. Hiroshi Nakajima, WHO’s director general, said, “The outlook is a crisis of suffering on a global scale” unless drastic changes in diet, exercise and smoking habits are adopted.

A similar disease trend for developing nations was reported in September as part of a separate, five-year study by an international team at the Harvard University School of Public Health. That report found that, contrary to conventional wisdom, such noncommunicable diseases as cancer, heart disease and diabetes already cause more deaths in the developing world than infectious diseases.

In addition to unhealthy lifestyles, the increases projected in the WHO report of noncommunicable diseases and other disabling conditions--such as arthritis and osteoporosis--are due to increasing life spans, which place more people at risk for developing chronic conditions later in life.

Half a century ago, most people worldwide died before their 50th birthday; today, most survive long past that milestone. In fact, the average life expectancy worldwide reached 65 years in 1996, and is even between 70 and 80 years in some countries.

According to the WHO report, in 2020 at least 15 million people worldwide will develop cancer, compared with about 10 million new cases a year currently. Along with projected doubling of cancer cases in developing countries by 2020, about a 40% jump is anticipated in industrialized nations by the 21st century’s second decade.

Analyzing data from European Union countries, the report predicted disturbing increases in lung cancer among women and prostate cancer in men occurring even sooner. In those nations, there will be a 33% rise in lung cancer in women and a 40% increase in prostate cancer by 2005, the health group said.

Both in Europe and in developing countries, women are believed at greater risk for developing smoking-related illnesses, such as lung cancer and heart disease, as tobacco manufacturers--under siege in the United States--increasingly have been turning to overseas markets. And in those markets, women are a target audience.

Tobacco-related deaths worldwide currently total about 3 million annually, with smoking responsible for one of every 7 cancer cases.

On another health front, Nakajima warned that infectious diseases continue to be a major problem for all countries, even richer nations where in recent years they have been thought under control.