The number of cancers will increase significantly – both in Germany and worldwide. The fear physicians. Especially poorer countries are struggling with the increase.
Physicians from the German Cancer Research Center fear that there will be an increase in cancer in the future, especially in developing and emerging countries. “It’s not an exaggeration to talk about having a tsunami of cancers,” said Michael Baumann, chief executive officer of the centre, in Dresden on Monday. The German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) based in Heidelberg wants to set up a branch office in Dresden.
Baumann expects that the number of new cases will also increase in Germany – from the current 500,000 per year to 600,000 in 2030. The DKFZ boss attributes this not only to demographic trends but also to lifestyle.
Prevention and early diagnosis of important
“We need a lot more research, we need new insights into cancer,” said Baumann. You have learned a lot, but you also can not understand a lot. Innovations should lead to three strategies. Point one is prevention. According to Baumann, up to 40 percent of all cancers could be avoided if people failed to do everything that led to the disease. Furthermore, it is about early detection, so up to 70 percent of all deaths could be avoided.
After all, it’s about improved treatment, said Baumann. This is done very personalized today. Cancer is a very different disease, so you need a targeted therapy for individual patients. It is important to use the rapidly increasing technological and data-scientific methods for research and treatment. The increase in information also on rare tumours must be available where they are needed.