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Cancer’s grip on SA tightens

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Cancer has killed many South Africans.

And now fears that the disease will claim scores of victims are increasing as more people are diagnosed all the time.

A new report released by the Institute for Race Relations (IRR) paints a bleak picture of the damage caused by cancer among South Africans.

It shows that deaths due to different types of cancer have been steadily increasing over the 19-year period between 1994 and 2013.

The study shows that men, in particular, have an increased risk of contracting this dreadful disease.

Sixty-five in every 100 000 men died of cancer in 1994 and, by 2013, this figure had risen to 71 per 100 000.

As for women, deaths increased from 51.6 to 68.8 per 100 000.

The types of cancers on the rise include prostate, intestinal and colon cancer. These showed sharp increases (see graphic), but it was lung cancer that continued to claim more lives over the period studied, with an average of 13 per 100 000 men and 5.4 per 100 000 women.

Cigarette smoking is the principal risk factor for developing lung cancer. Passive exposure to tobacco smoke can also cause lung cancer.

Tawanda Makombo, research analyst at the IRR, said the scary statistics were a true reflection of what has been happening in South Africa over the past two decades.

“Cancer is a lifestyle disease. Counterintuitively, the increases measured in the report would seem to corroborate other IRR research, which shows that living standards in South Africa are improving,” she said.

Michael Herbst, health specialist at the Cancer Association of SA, said he was not surprised by the IRR’s findings.

“The new cancer statistics demonstrate the impact of cancer on society with more accuracy. Nearly half of us will hear the words ‘you have cancer’ at some point in our lives. That’s a stark figure and it’s a reminder – if ever one were needed – of the challenge we face in beating this disease.”

Previously, it was calculated that more than one person in three would develop cancer at some point during their life – in other words, the so-called lifetime risk was more than one in six for men and one in eight for women.

But the latest estimates put the risk of developing the disease in South Africa at one in eight for men and one in nine for women.

Herbst explained that this was not a sudden increase in risk.

“The different numbers are owing to a change in the method used to make the calculation. But they reveal a gradual increase in risk that’s taken place over decades,” he said.

Herbst said a large proportion of all people diagnosed with cancer in South Africa are older than 60.

“This is because cancer is a disease of our genes – the bits of DNA code that hold the instructions for all of the microscopic machinery inside our cells.

“Over time, mistakes accumulate in this code – scientists can now see them stamped in cancer’s DNA. And it’s these mistakes that can kick-start a cell’s journey towards becoming cancerous.

“The longer we live, the more time we have for errors to build up. As time passes, our risk of developing cancer goes up, as we accumulate more of these faults in our genes,” Herbst said.

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