Two million cancers worldwide caused by preventable infections
About one in six or two million new cases of cancer worldwide are caused by preventable or treatable infections, warn French researchers.
Scientists at the International Agency for Research on Cancer carried out a systemic analysis to estimate the proportion of infection-related cancers across the globe.
Their findings which appeared in The Lancet Oncology showed that four particular infections caused by human papillomaviruses (HPV), Helicobacter pylori bacterium and hepatitis B and C viruses are associated with 1.9 million new cancer cases.
Most such tumors occur in the organ which each of those agents infect including cervix for HPV, Stomach for H. Pylori and liver for HBV and HCV.
Sixteen in every hundred cancers worldwide in 2008 were infection-related, but this figure was three times higher in developing countries.
The figures also varied widely from region to region, from 3.3 per cent in Australia and New Zealand, to 32.7 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa.
“Infections with certain viruses, bacteria, and parasites are one of the biggest and preventable causes of cancer worldwide,” said lead authors Catherine de Martel and Martyn Plummer.
“Application of existing public-health methods for infection prevention, such as vaccination, safer injection practice, or antimicrobial treatments, could have a substantial effect on future burden of cancer worldwide,” they suggested.
Source: presstv.com
