The number of cancer patients in the Netherlands will rise explosively in the next ten years

by time news

Flip Franssen

NOS News

The number of cancer patients in the Netherlands will increase sharply in the next ten years. Where currently about 800,000 people still have or have had cancer, in 2032 there will be 1.4 million. This is apparent from the latest trend research by the Comprehensive Cancer Center of the Netherlands (IKNL).

The elderly have a greater and increasing risk of developing cancer. Due to the current double aging population, in which the group of elderly people is relatively large and the elderly continue to live longer, cancer in many of its forms will spread widely. As for the expected patients in 2032, there will be hardly any chance of that happening.

“That’s because lifestyle changes in advanced age have hardly any effect. Cancer often manifests itself when you’re over 70, but the way you’ve lived influences your risk profile. A life filled with cigarettes and alcohol can hardly turn back,” says Valery Lemmens, principal researcher at IKNL and professor at Erasmus University.

Chance of survival increases

According to the prognosis of IKNL, about 156,000 people will be diagnosed with cancer by 2032. In 2019, there were already 118,000 new diagnoses. In 1989 there were still 56,000.

The cancers that can be treated well, such as melanoma of the skin and basal cell carcinoma, appear to be rising significantly in numbers. In both men and women, the number of new diagnoses in these two forms of cancer will exceed 5,000 and 30,000 in ten years’ time. However, the survival rate for melanoma has now risen to 90 percent. With basal cell carcinoma, also a form of skin cancer, the chance is almost 100 percent.

“Nevertheless, we must take preventive measures, such as making sunscreen available free of charge for people who work outside a lot, for example,” says Lemmens. “Certainly in a time of exploding healthcare costs. The treatment of a melanoma, when it has spread, quickly costs 100,000 euros. If you are there on time, it is cheaper.”

Still worry about more deadly variants

The IKNL researchers are particularly concerned about cancers that can be causally linked to overweight, such as adenocarcinoma of the esophagus and cancer of the liver, bile duct and kidney. These forms of the disease are much more deadly.

With kidney cancer, 67 percent of men and 71 percent of women survive after five years. But in adenocarcinoma of the esophagus and in liver cancer, the five-year survival rate in men and women is only 25 percent. With bile duct cancer, this is only 10 percent.

These survival figures, combined with the prediction that by 2040 more than half of the Netherlands will be overweight, paint a worrying picture.

NOS

In men, the number of diagnoses of cancers linked to overweight will steadily increase

According to Lemmens, the government, social organizations and employers must now take preventive measures such as raising the excise tax on alcohol.

A healthy lifestyle from an early age remains the best method to reduce the risk of cancer. Teaching children such a lifestyle does not have to be difficult, according to research from Maastricht University last month.

Pupils at two primary schools in Landgraaf maintained a healthy weight because they followed a specific program in which they had lunch together every school day and exercised more. RIVM evaluated this programme. Conclusion: By 2040, the goals to combat obesity can be achieved if this program is introduced in all primary schools.

Lung cancer more common in women than men in 2027

That behavioral changes have an effect on the number of cancer cases is apparent from the developments surrounding lung cancer. Until the emancipation wave in the 1960s and 1970s, it was generally not accepted for women to smoke. The number of men who had lung cancer in 1989 was therefore six times the number of women with this disease.

But fewer men have started smoking and women more. In 2027, women will surpass men when it comes to lung cancer.

NOS

Women have started smoking more while men have started smoking less. Women are expected to get lung cancer more often

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