‘More to do’: plea for action as cancer tipped to claim 1.45m lives

More than 4.5 million Australians are expected to be diagnosed with cancer during the next 25 years, with 1.45 million people predicted to die from the disease.

Screening programs for bowel cancer would help cut cancer death rates.

More than 4.5 million Australians are expected to be diagnosed with cancer during the next 25 years, with 1.45 million people predicted to die from the disease.

Research by the Daffodil Centre at Cancer Council NSW and the University of Sydney has found breast cancer, prostate ­cancer, melanoma and colorectal cancer will remain the most commonly diagnosed cancers. Despite the grim prediction of the large number of cases, the incidence of cancer is expected to be 20 per cent lower in the next 25 years compared to the past 25. The incidence of lung cancers and melanoma is expected to drop the most, thanks to public health campaigns that have brought about tobacco control and sun awareness.

Lung cancer is expected to ­decline by 43 per cent for males and 31 per cent for females, while the incidence of melanoma is predicted to fall by 49 per cent for men and 28 per cent for women.

Screening programs for bowel, breast and cervical cancer are also expected to cut cancer death rates.

Screening programs for breast cancer are expected to cut cancer death rates. Picture: iStock

Daffodil Centre director Karen Canfell said the study was the largest and most comprehensive of its kind and provided a blueprint for how cancer should be controlled and ­treated into the future. The ­research has been published in the journal Lancet Public Health.

“What we did was we used data on cancer rates in Australia going back decades, and we also used information on smoking behaviour and exposure over the past several decades, as well as information on other factors that can decrease the risk of cancer, like screening ­behaviour,” Professor Canfell said.

“We used this to project forward to try to attain really a picture of cancer as it will occur in Australia over the next 25 years.

“What we have predicted is that, based on current trends, Australia is on track to have over four and a half million people diagnosed with cancer in the next 25 years and, unfortunately, over 1.4 million people dying from cancer. So that’s obviously an unprecedented and large- scale increase in the number of people expected to suffer from this disease.”

But Professor Canfell said the numbers could be brought down if governments made significant ­investments in prevention, early ­detection and patient care.

“Our message is there’s still more to do when it comes to prevention and screening,” she said.

“We could improve significantly on the expected outcomes, potentially saving hundreds of thousands of the 1.45 million lives ­expected to be lost, but only if there is a commitment to investing in doing more of what we know works to prevent, detect and treat cancer, and fund more ­potentially lifesaving research.”

Bowel cancer screening is one of the areas most in need of promotion, with only four in 10 people over the age of 50 participating in screening programs.