Suleman Chaudhry
LAHORE: The World Health Organization (WHO) said that 118,631 people have lost their lives with different types of cancer during 2022 in Pakistan, out of them 58 934 were men and 59 697 were women who succumbed to this deadly disease.
Breast cancer was the leading cause of death (15,522 – 18.6 per cent) followed by oral cancer (10,181– 5.9 per cent) and lung cancer (8,307 – 5.3 per cent) in the country in 2022.
Pakistan reported 185, 748 new cancer cases out of them new cancer cases 87,568 were men and 98,180 were female and 118 631 deaths in 2022. According to latest estimates released by WHO, the top five cancer among Pakistani were found to be breast 16.5 %, lip oral cavity 8.6, lung 5.1, colorectum 5.1 and oesophagus 5 per cent.
It also calculated that the number of people alive within 5 years following a cancer diagnosis was nearly 0.32 million in Pakistan.
In Pakistan, the risk of developing cancer before turning 75 was calculated to be 11 per cent, while the risk of dying from cancer by the same age was found to be 7.6 per cent
The top five types of cancer among Pakistani women were found to be those of breast, lip oral cavity, ovary, cervix uteri and oesophagus. The top five cancer among men were lip oral cavity, lung, colorectum, prostate and oesophagus.
Breast cancer was the leading among women with as many as 30,682 new cases (31.3), followed by lip oral cavity 5170, (5.3). The third most frequent cancer among women was ovary 4987 (5.1) in 2022, cervix uteri 4762 (4.9), oesophagus 4513 (4.6) and other 48066 were new cases.
Lip oral cavity was the leading among men with as many as 10,745 new cases (12.3), followed by lung 7571, (8.6). Colorectum was third most frequent cancer among men with 5579 (6.4) followed by prostate 5198 new cases (5.9) and oesophagus 4776 (5.5) new cases reported in 2022.
In 2022, there were an estimated 20 million new cancer cases and 9.7 million deaths. The estimated number of people who were alive within 5 years following a cancer diagnosis was 53.5 million. About 1 in 5 people develop cancer in their lifetime, approximately 1 in 9 men and 1 in 12 women die from the disease.
Three major cancer types in 2022 lung, breast and colorectal cancers around the world. Lung cancer was the most commonly occurring cancer worldwide with 2.5 million new cases accounting for 12.4% of the total new cases. Female breast cancer ranked second (2.3 million cases, 11.6%), followed by colorectal cancer (1.9 million cases, 9.6%), prostate cancer (1.5 million cases, 7.3%), and stomach cancer (970 000 cases, 4.9%).
Lung cancer was the leading cause of cancer death (1.8 million deaths, 18.7% of the total cancer deaths) followed by colorectal cancer (900 000 deaths, 9.3%), liver cancer (760 000 deaths, 7.8%), breast cancer (670 000 deaths, 6.9%) and stomach cancer (660 000 deaths, 6.8%). Lung cancer’s re-emergence as the most common cancer is likely related to persistent tobacco use in Asia.
