A new study published in the Lancet shows that most of the world will fall way short of the SDG target for deaths caused by cancers and heart disease, with 35 million more of cancer patients expected by 2050
First, the good news: Premature deaths from cancer have declined in three-fourths of the world. Now, the not-so-good news: only eight countries are expected to meet the related United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Target. This target aims to cut premature deaths from non-communicable diseases such as cancer by 33 percent by 2020 with effective prevention and treatment.
Researchers, including those from the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Switzerland, studied the risk of premature death for people aged 30-69. They aimed to understand how the yearly pattern of premature cancer-related deaths changed from 2000 to 2019 across 183 countries.
The research team used data from the WHO Global Health Estimates and found that although early deaths due to all cancers decreased in Southeast Asian countries, early deaths due to breast, colorectal, and pancreatic cancer increased. The inferences were unequivocal and unpalatable: Every single WHO region will fall behind the SDG 3.4 targets for cancers. Even more alarmingly, there will be 35 million new cancer cases by 2050, a majority of them in countries that can least afford the burden: the middle- and low-income nations.
The new study published by Lancet confirms the findings of earlier investigations that the primary cause of premature deaths in most countries are cancers and disease of the heart.