Bust Your Cancer Myths With The Recent Facts And Stats

With World cancer day, just around the corner, let’s take a look at a few cancer facts and myths:

• There are more than 100 types of cancers that can affect any part of the body.
• About 70% of all cancer deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries.
• Tobacco use is the single largest preventable cause of cancer in the world responsible for 22% of cancer deaths.
• 1/5th of all cancers in the world are caused by a chronic infection, like human papillomavirus (HPV) causes cervical cancer and hepatitis B virus (HBV) causes liver cancer.
• More than 30% of cancer can be prevented, mainly by quitting tobacco use, taking a healthy diet, being physically active and moderating the use of alcohol.
• In developing countries, up to 20% of cancer deaths could be prevented by immunization against the infection of HBV and HPV.
• The commonest cancer myth is that if you have a family history of cancer, you are likely to have it too. The fact about this is, only 5% to 10% of cancers are genetically passed from parents to children.
• It is often believed that when you’re diagnosed with cancer, you will probably die in a short span. We should understand that “cancer is not a death sentence”. Advances in cancer diagnosis and treatment have increased survival rates for most of the cancer types.
• There is a lot of noise about the usage of cell phones and the presence of cell phone towers your vicinity causes cancer. According to scientific studies, cell phones are not found to be causative for cancer. Cancer is caused by genetic mutations, and cell phones emit a type of low-frequency energy that does not damage genes. However, whether cell phones and cell phone towers cause cancer still remains controversial.

Let’s see some statistics related to cancer in India:

• India is most likely to have over 17.3 lakh new cancer cases and over 8.8 lakh deaths are estimated because of cancer by 2020.
• Over 7.36 lakh people are expected to give in to cancer in 2016; these figures are estimated to shoot up to 8.8 lakh by 2020.
• Breast cancer and mouth cancer topped the list in females and males respectively.
• The overall proportion of cancer diagnosis rates and patients visiting early - localized stage is only 12.5%.

On 4th February this year, a programme would be flagged off by PM Modi. Under this initiative, the government aims at testing over 1/3rd of the population in 2017. Under this programme, a massive free door-to-door screening for cancer prevention along with screening for heart disorders and diabetes will be done. Since cancer is one of the silent killer diseases, it might not display any symptoms in its early stages. Here a cancer checkup proves to be beneficial. Screening for cancer prevention should be done regularly, as it assures you some peace of mind. It is always advisable to opt for a preventive health checkup should be taken for the assessing the normal body functioning.