By: FOLHAPRESS – Samuel Fernandez
11/23/2022 at 9:30 am
Brazil and the world
SÃO PAULO, SP (FOLHAPRESS) – From 2023 to 2025, Brazil will have 704,000 new cancer cases each year. The estimate resulted in more than two million new diagnoses of the disease in the next three years. The data are from the Inca (National Cancer Institute) and released on Wednesday (23) in the document “2023 Estimates – Incidence of Cancer in Brazil”.
In the previous survey, which estimated numbers for the emergence of the disease between 2020 and 2022, the rate was 625,000 new cases each year. However, Mariana Cancella, a researcher with the Coordinating Organization for Prevention and Surveillance (Conprev), does not recommend comparing the two assessments.
It shows that from one estimate to another changes in methodology may occur, affecting the measurement between them. In the case of the latter study, two types of tumors were added to the analysis: pancreatic and hepatic.
“They were included because, in certain regions of Brazil, they have a huge impact,” says Cancela. In the Southern region, for example, pancreatic cancer will be the sixth most common among women. Liver cancer will be the seventh most common form of liver cancer among men residing in the north of the country.
In addition to these two types of tumors, there were 19 other types of tumors that make up the estimate. The study methodology consists of examining the data of cases and deaths from cancers available in public databases to predict the scenario for the coming years.
In the recently released survey, the most prevalent cancer was non-melanoma skin, totaling about 31% of the projected total for the next three years. In a way, this was already expected: It is common for a patient to be diagnosed with this tumor simultaneously with another.
This type tends to have a lower mortality rate, Cancela says. Therefore, in some parts of the Inca analysis, the tumor is separated from the other parts.
“In terms of planning for public health, it is interesting to have this class, because they are a class in which treatment is generally less complex,” says the researcher.
The study also examined the differences in the incidence of cancer between men and women. Apart from non-melanoma skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common in the next three years. For women, a breast tumor occupies this position.
Then colorectal cancer appears in second place for both men and women. The tumor exceeded that of the lung and cervix, and the tumor was more prevalent in men and women, respectively.
One reason cervical cancer has fallen to third place among women, Cancela says, is the positive impact of widespread preventive testing, such as Pap smears. With regard to lung cancer, the decline in male prevalence is associated with anti-smoking policies that make smoking habits more difficult in the country.
This point is related to the fact that the adoption of unhealthy habits, such as a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet, by a large part of the population increases the risk of developing cancerous diseases. Therefore, Cancela says it’s important to “work more with risk factors to reduce incidence.”
The Brazilian scenario Although Cancela does not refer to the comparison of the various estimates, it does indicate that Brazil is experiencing a trend towards an increase in cases of the disease. In addition to the previously mentioned habits that imply higher tumor risks, population aging explains the growth in diagnoses.
An example is the higher incidence of cancer in southern and southeastern Brazil compared to the rest of the country. Cancela says that these areas have higher HDI (Human Development Index), which leads to a greater number of elderly people. As advancing age is an important risk factor for tumor onset, these regions would be expected to score a higher number of diagnoses.
Even with the increase in cancer cases, Brazil is still below the global average. When performing an adjusted incidence analysis, which consists of comparing all countries as if they had the same population distribution by age group, it was observed that the prevalence in Brazil is about 20 diagnoses lower compared to the global average per 100 000 population.
For Cancela, the big advantage of the estimates made by the Incas is that they point to the increase in disease diagnoses in order to better prepare the Brazilian healthy ecosystem.
“We designed these numbers so that the system [SUS] It can adapt to what you can expect.”
Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2022 09:29:00 -0300
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