New York: Up to four in 10 or 7.1 million cancer cases worldwide could be prevented, according to a new global analysis from the World Health Organization (WHO) and its International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
The study, released on World Cancer Day, identified tobacco as the leading preventable cause of cancer globally, responsible for 15 percent of all new cancer cases.
It also found, for the first time, that nine cancer-causing infections are responsible for about 10 percent of cancer cases. Other reasons include alcohol, high body mass index, physical inactivity, air pollution, and ultraviolet radiation.
The analysis, based on data from 185 countries and 36 cancer types, estimated that 37 per cent of all new cancer cases in 2022, around 7.1 million cases, were linked to preventable causes.
Three cancer types - lung, stomach and cervical cancer- accounted for nearly half of all preventable cancer cases in both men and women, globally.
Lung cancer was primarily linked to smoking and air pollution, stomach cancer was largely attributable to Helicobacter pylori infection, and cervical cancer was overwhelmingly caused by human papillomavirus (HPV).
"This is the first global analysis to show how much cancer risk comes from causes we can prevent," said Dr Ilbawi, WHO Team Lead for Cancer Control, and author of the study.
The burden of preventable cancer was substantially higher in men than in women, with 45 per cent of new cancer cases in men compared with 30 per cent in women. Among women globally, infections accounted for 11 per cent of all new cancer cases, followed by smoking at 6 percent and high body mass index at 3 per cent, the report said.
