World Cancer Day 2020
World Cancer Day is a global observance that helps raise people’s awareness of cancer and how to prevent, detect, or treat it. This event is held on February 4 each year.
This year's theme for World Cancer Day is "I am and I will", which means it acknowledges everyone's capacity to act in the face of cancer.
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World Cancer Day 2020 Theme : I Am and I will |
World Cancer Day 2020 theme and everything else that you need to know as World Cancer Day will see its 20th anniversary in 2020.
The Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) organizes World Cancer Day every year on February 4 to raise awareness internationally to encourage its prevention, detection, and treatment. The primary goal of World Cancer Day is to prominently reduce illness and death caused by cancer.
Huge Rise in Cancer
Enormous progress has been made over the past 2 decades in more effective therapies for cancer and a greater understanding of its causes and the implementation of prevention strategies, including lifestyle changes such as smoking cessation—smoking caused about 2.3 million deaths from cancer globally in 20171—based on population growth and aging. However, the global cancer burden is estimated to grow to more than 29 million cases annually by 2040, assuming global rates in 2018 remain the same,1 and 16.5 million cancer-related deaths annually.2 That global rise in cancer burden is expected to continue to disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries, where, in 2012, 65% of all cancer deaths globally occurred. This percentage is expected to increase to 75% by 2030.3
People, businesses, governments, and non-profit organisations work together on World Cancer Day to help the general public learn more about the different types of cancer, how to watch for it, treatments, and preventative measures.
World Cancer Day 2020 highlights the need for urgent action to increase early stage cancer detection, screening, and diagnosis to significantly improve cancer patients’ chances of survival.
The organization also works towards improving cancer laws across the world. The UICC, in 2012, also founded Mc Cabe Centre for Law & Cancer, which is the first and only centre of its kind. The centre’s aim lies at advancing law to fight cancer.
Early detection, screening, and diagnosis significantly improves survival rates Universally, the majority of cancers are amenable to early detection. When a cancer is detected at an early stage – and when coupled with appropriate treatment – the chance of survival beyond five years is dramatically higher than when detected at a later stage when the tumour has spread and the disease is more advanced.
Early detection, screening, and diagnosis also have been proven to significantly improve patient survival rates and quality of life as well as significantly reduce the cost and complexity of cancer treatment.
Early diagnosis can also significantly reduce the cost of treatment.
Studies in high-income countries show that treatment costs for early-diagnosed cancer patients are two to four times less expensive than treating those diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer.
one-quarter of cancers are head and neck cancers because of tobacco consumption. We now have legislation to increase taxation on tobacco products, and people cannot smoke in public places, so this indicates encouraging progress.
People are becoming more and more committed to the activities surrounding World Cancer Day and momentum is definitely growing. We invite more supporters to speak out, particularly from our health-care professionals, who do not have influential voices. This year, the 20th anniversary of World Cancer Day promises to be the year that ignites greater dialogue and action to accelerate the reduction of unnecessary deaths from cancer globally.
There is no question that a lack of access to resources to diagnose and treat cancer hinders the delivery of cancer care and increases the rates of cancer mortality. Reducing the cancer burden in low- and middle-income countries is very difficult because the problem is multifactorial, including a lack of access to affordable cancer treatment (eg, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, radiotherapy) and to oncology professionals.
Today, more than 150 countries are using the WHO’s Essential Medicines List to guide their decisions regarding which medicines provide the best value for the financial resources they have. In 2018, WHO published its List of Essential Diagnostics, which has been expanded to include noncommunicable diseases like cancer, for the detection of a wide range of solid tumors as well as leukemia and lymphomas.
Thanks to the Global Task Force, we now have a much better understanding of the scale of the global problem, the current need for radiotherapy, and a much more accurate forecast of the needs over the next decade. The Global Task Force also convincingly established the investment case for radiotherapy and set out five clear calls to actions, with specific targets relating to inclusion of radiotherapy in cancer control plans, expansion of access and increasing capacity, training radiotherapy professionals, and financing and investment in radiotherapy, as well as including radiotherapy access in each country’s universal health coverage.
Not having sufficient numbers of well-trained clinical oncologists is another cause of significant cancer health disparities in low-resource countries. More training and fellowship programs are needed in regions with an extreme shortage of oncologists. Governments need to design measures to address this workforce challenge, which would benefit a country’s whole society. If people have greater access to the oncology health-care system, including screening programs, more patients will be diagnosed at an earlier stage, when their cancer can be effectively managed and even cured.
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