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Worldwide burden of gynaecological cancer: The size of the problem

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpobgyn.2005.10.007Get rights and content

The estimation of cancer burden is valuable to set up priorities for disease control. The comprehensive global cancer statistics from the International Agency for Research on Cancer indicate that gynaecological cancers accounted for 19% of the 5.1 million estimated new cancer cases, 2.9 million cancer deaths and 13 million 5-year prevalent cancer cases among women in the world in 2002. Cervical cancer accounted for 493 000 new cases and 273 000 deaths; uterine body cancer for 199 000 new cases and 50 000 deaths; ovarian cancer for 204 000 new cases and 125 000 deaths; cancers of the vagina, vulva and choriocarcinoma together constituted 45 900 cases. More than 80% of the cervical cancer cases occurred in developing countries and two-thirds of corpus uteri cases occurred in the developed world. Political will and advocacy to invest in healthcare infrastructure and human resources to improve service delivery and accessibility are vital to reduce the current burden in low- and medium-resource countries.

Section snippets

Indices of cancer burden

‘Incidence’ provides an indication of the average risk of developing a cancer in a population.1, 2 When expressed as an absolute number of cases per year, it reflects the load of new patients diagnosed in a given region. The risk of disease in different populations within countries, regions, ethnicities or over different time periods can be compared using incidence. The impact of prevention strategies based on reducing or eliminating exposure of populations to disease-causing risk factors (e.g.

2002 estimates of gynaecological cancer burden

It has been estimated that there were 10.9 million new cancer cases (all cancers excluding non-melanoma skin cancer) in both sexes in the world around the year 2002: 5.8 million cases in men and 5.1 million cases in women.1, 2 There were 6.7 million cancer deaths, 3.8 million in men and 2.9 million in women. There were 24.6 million persons with a diagnosis of cancer within 5 years from the initial diagnosis, of which 13.0 million were women.

The burden of uterine body, uterine cervix and ovarian

Discussion

The estimates—the best possible information on global cancer burden—are more or less accurate for the different regions, depending on the extent and validity of the data available from those regions. The data indicate striking variations in the burden of different cancers, due to variations in exposure to suspected and established risk factors and wide disparity and inequality in healthcare infrastructure and accessibility between developed countries and the medically underserved less developed

Summary

Approximately one out of six cancer cases among women in the world is a gynaecological cancer. Whereas cervical cancer is the most common gynaecological cancer in developing countries, endometrial cancer is the most common in developed countries. Although mortality from cervical cancer is potentially entirely avoidable by current technologies, it still accounts for half of the global gynaecological cancer burden due to lack of effective screening in low- and medium-resource countries.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Mrs Evelyn Bayle for her help in preparing this manuscript.

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