Cancer Across the Globe

Office of Global Affairs Director Nils Daulaire spoke at CDC’s 2012 National Cancer Conference held in Washington, DC during the week of August 20.  Dr. Daulaire gave comments and fielded questions in a session titled Cancer Across the Globe.  Mona Saraiya, medical officer in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Ted Trimble, director of the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Global Health also served on the panel.  With the theme, Uniting Systems, Policy, and Practice in Cancer Prevention and Control, the conference convened representatives from government, academic, and national and community based prevention and control programs to translate research into practice and to improve public health.

“Non-communicable diseases such as cancer have emerged as a growing health problem for countries of every size and in every corner of the globe,” said Dr. Daulaire.  “NCDs now cause more deaths every year than AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and all other causes combined – totaling about 63 percent of all deaths worldwide.  Of those, cancer is the second leading cause of death; cancer was responsible for about 13 percent of all deaths globally in 2008, and almost a quarter of all deaths from NCDs as a group.  About 40 percent of all cancers are preventable, but without concerted action the estimated incidence of new cancers will rise to 21.4 million by 2030.

For more information about global cancer research, expertise building, and resource leveraging across nations, visit the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Global Health site.