Editorial
Cancer Prevention in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
Subhojit Dey,
1
Preet K. Dhillon,
2
and Preetha Rajaraman
3
1
Indian Institute of Public Health-Delhi, Public Health Foundation of India, Gurgaon, Haryana, India
2
Centre for Chronic Conditions and Injuries, Public Health Foundation of India, Gurgaon, Haryana, India
3
Center for Global Health, National Cancer Institute, New Delhi, India
Correspondence should be addressed to Subhojit Dey; subhojit.dey@iiphd.org
Received 15 January 2017; Accepted 18 January 2017; Published 22 February 2017
Copyright © 2017 Subhojit Dey et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Cancer is a rising problem across the world with a 33%
increase in global cases of cancer between 2005 and 2015
[1]. Te increase has been maximum in countries with the
lowest development [1]. While LMICs bear a major share
of the burden of cancer [1–3], very few LMICs have a
comprehensive cancer prevention strategy in place. Tis leads
to a high proportion of patients presenting at tertiary care
centres at late stages of cancer, when treatment is most
difcult and costly and survival is poor [4]. In the absence
of adequate treatment capacity in most LMICs, patients
presenting at later stages signifcantly increase the burden of
disease. Lack of palliative care [5] compounds this situation
further resulting in an unfortunate scenario where a diagnosis
of cancer is equated with death in most LMICs. With
reducing levels of infectious diseases and rising life expectan-
cies, LMICs are recognizing that cancer needs to become
a health priority. However, the essential steps required to
prevent cancer and avoid the later consequences are still
lacking emphasis. With the above scenario in mind, we had
issued a call for papers that focused on cancer prevention in
LMICs.
Overall, it was observed that research on cancer and
especially cancer prevention in LMICs was limited [6].
Among the cancer research that is being done in LMICs, a
lot of research is not of good quality. Also, most of the focus
is currently on building capacity and conducting research
related to cancer treatment, and cancer prevention takes a
back seat, for cancer prevention requires not only facilities
and human resources on the health system side but also
awareness and the will and ability to pay for preventive
services on the population side. Given the situation in most
LMICs, both sides fall short of reaching a point where cancer
prevention can be a realistic scenario. Regarding this, it is
important to note the recommendations of the Breast Health
Global Initiative (BHGI) which has created guidelines for
breast cancer prevention while considering the economic
situation of a particular nation [7]. We need to focus more on
cancer prevention in LMICs, and while the job of the health
providers and researchers including those who contributed to
this special issue is commendable, there is immense scope for
more to be done.
Subhojit Dey
Preet K. Dhillon
Preetha Rajaraman
References
[1] C. Fitzmaurice, C. Allen, R. M. Barber et al., “Global, regional,
and national cancer incidence, mortality, years of life lost, years
lived with disability, and disability-adjusted life-years for 32
cancer groups, 1990 to 2015: a systematic analysis for the global
burden of disease study,” JAMA Oncology, 2016.
[2] B. W. Stewart and C. P. Wild, Eds., World Cancer Report,
International Association for Research on Cancer (IARC),
WHO, 2014.
[3] World Cancer Factsheet, 2014, Cancer Research, 2014, https://
publications.cancerresearchuk.org/downloads/product/CS
REPORT WORLD.pdf.
[4] C. Allemani, H. K. Weir, H. Carreira et al., “Global surveillance
of cancer survival 1995–2009: analysis of individual data for
25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67
countries (CONCORD-2),” e Lancet, vol. 385, no. 9972, pp.
977–1010, 2015.
Hindawi
Journal of Cancer Epidemiology
Volume 2017, Article ID 8312064, 2 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/8312064