World Cancer Day commemorated on Feb 4

(Vatican Radio) Today, February 4^th, is commemorated as “World Cancer Day” – a day dedicated to uniting the world in the fight against cancer.

The United Nation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, in a report released today, identifies cancer as “the biggest cause of mortality worldwide.” There were an estimated 8.2 million deaths from cancer in 2012, and the IARC report says global cancer incidence has been rising.

We spoke with Cary Adams, the CEO of Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), about the importance of World Cancer Day, and what we can do to help fight cancer. During World Cancer Day, he said, “We mobilize and motivate cancer organizations around the world to reach out to the media to raise the profile of cancer on this special day.”

Each year, a different theme is chosen for World Cancer Day “to make sure we can get across some key points about the issue of cancer.” This year, Adams said, “we’re talking about some of those, rather frustrating, myths and misconceptions which prevent us to address the disease as well as we could do.”

He identified four major myths: “One is ‘We don’t need to talk about cancer,’ — which reflects the fact that when people hear the word ‘cancer’ they often shy away from it, because it’s quite a scary word.”

The second myth is that there are no signs or symptoms of cancer. This is simply not true for many cancers, Adams said, although some cancers are difficult to diagnose in their earlier stages.

Another myth is that nothing can be done about cancer, that those who get the disease are simply unlucky.

“And a final myth that we’re addressing,” he said, is the idea that “I don’t have the right to cancer care.” Adams said this relates especially to low middle income countries where people generally feel they don’t have a right to the access for cancer care because of the difficult situation of the health systems in those countries.

Of these myths, Adams said the notion that there is nothing one can do about cancer may be the most important to debunk. “This runs counter to a lot of the scientific evidence that up to 40 percent of all cancers are caused by known risk factors like tobacco, obesity, poor diet, lack of physical activity.” As many as 10 to 25 percent of cancers, he said, relate to cancers that are caused by infections and viruses.” Knowing the risk factors — he pointed especially to smoking — is an important step in reducing the incidence of cancer around the world. “With that knowledge,” he said, “we should be able to address at least half of all cancers around the world by changing our lifestyles and behaviours, and reducing our risk of developing cancer in our lifetime.”

Listen to Christopher Wells' interview with Cary Adams, Chief Executive Officer for the Union for International Cancer Control: