Over 4,500 new cancer cases in UAE this year

Dubai - One in five men and one in six women worldwide develop cancer during their lifetime.

Breast cancer topped the total 4,707 new cancer cases that were found in the UAE in 2018, the World Health Organisation's (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said in a report released on Wednesday.
A total of 1,054 (22.4 per cent) cases of breast cancer were found in 2018 followed by 662 cases of colorectal cancers, 360 of thyroid, 252 prostate, 238 of leukaemia and 2,141 of other cancers.
The number of deaths from these cancers was 2,079 while the total number of prevalent cases (over the past five years) was 13,698, said the report.
The Globocan 2018 database, accessible online as part of the IARC Global Cancer Observatory, provided estimates of incidence and mortality in 185 countries for 36 types of cancer and for all cancer sites combined.
The global cancer burden is estimated to have risen to 18.1 million new cases and 9.6 million deaths in 2018.
One in five men and one in six women worldwide develop cancer during their lifetime, and one in eight men and one in 11 women die from the disease.
The total number of people who are alive within five years of a cancer diagnosis, called the five-year prevalence, is estimated to be 43.8 million worldwide.
In the UAE, colorectum cancer topped the list at 437 cases in 2018 in men followed by prostate at 252, leukaemia at 151, bladder at 146 and lung at 145.
The number of men who died due to cancer was 1,102, higher than women at 997.
In females, the highest number of cases was breast cancer with 1,054 cases followed by thyroid at 279, colorectum at 225, uterus at 187 and cervix at 108.
The increasing cancer burden is due to several factors, including population growth and ageing as well as the changing prevalence of certain causes of cancer linked to social and economic development.
The new data show that most countries are still faced with an increase in the absolute number of cases being diagnosed and requiring treatment and care.
"These new figures highlight that much remains to be done to address the alarming rise in the cancer burden globally and that prevention has a key role to play," said IARC director Dr Christopher Wild. "Efficient prevention and early detection policies must be implemented urgently to complement treatments in order to control this devastating disease across the world."
Earlier this week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) had also launched the report on independent high-level on commission on non-communicable diseases (NCD).
asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE