As time draws near for the annual celebration of Cancer Awareness (in the month of October), data in a new Lancet Commission on Women, Power, and Cancer (LCWPC) and an accompanying analysis of previous International Agency for Research on Cancer data has shown that nearly seven in 10 women who died prematurely from cancer in 2020 could have been saved.
The research found that of the 5.3 million adults who died early from cancer last year, 2.3 million were women, with one-third killed due to a lack of timely treatment rather than prevention.
The new population-based study has estimated premature deaths from cancer at ages 30 to 69 years across 185 countries. The study looks at the preventable and treatable deaths on 36 different types of cancer. Of the estimated global cancer burden of 265.6 million years of life lost (YLLs), 182.8 million were due to premature deaths from cancer in 2020. This is equivalent to 68.8% of the total YLLs from cancer. Of these premature deaths, 124.3 million (68%) were preventable and 58.5 million (32%) were treatable.
