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Over the past 30 years, cancer rates in people under 50 have risen by 80 percent.
She was 25, had a young marriage and a successful career. But that all came to an end at one point, because after a year and a half of battling cancer, she finally succumbed to it. We are talking about the well-known opera singer Patricia Burda Janečková, who died of breast cancer at the beginning of October.
She had been battling the disease since February last year, and as part of her treatment she had also undergone a mastectomy (removal of the breast), but despite her young age, the cancer eventually prevailed.
Cancer, meanwhile, has long been thought of as a disease that comes with increasing age.
However, many scientific studies point to its increasing incidence in younger people. Most recently, the media have been circulating a report on worldwide research showing an 80 per cent increase in cancer in people under the age of 50 over the past 30 years.
The team, which consisted of Scottish and Chinese scientists, looked at patients aged between 14 and 49 and examined statistics from around the world. In total, the study included data from more than 200 countries and looked at 29 different types of cancer.
The highest levels of cancer in younger people were found in North America, Australia and Western Europe. Overall, more than one million people under the age of 50 died from the disease in 2019, the leading cause being breast cancer. Bronchial, lung, colon and stomach cancers ranked next.
“This is not the only study, there are more, it has been observed in the United States and in other developed economies. It is a fact that is a given,” Štefan Korec, a long-time oncologist, told Postoj, adding that Slovakia is also seeing a trend of increasing cancer in young people.
However, it is difficult to say what types are most prevalent, as we are significantly behind in collecting cancer data. “Slovakia, however, is basically following the trend that is currently occurring in the West,” Korec adds. So it should be mostly breast and colon cancer.
According to oncologist Štefan Korec, there is also an increasing trend of cancer in young people in Slovakia. We are significantly behind in data collection, but it should be mainly breast and colon cancer.
Róbert Babeľa, vice-rector of the Slovak University of Health Sciences, also told Postoj that there is a lack of data on cancer patients. The last validated data dates back to 2014. Only those on the overall incidence of the disease are available.
“Since 2009, our mortality rate for all cancer diagnoses combined has been steadily rising. If in 2009, 11 608 people died of cancer diagnoses, in 2021 it was 12 789. Paradoxically, the highest number was in 2020 – 13 805,” says Babeľa.
Cancer is generally more widespread in Slovakia than in other countries. While in 2020, there were 773 men with cancer per 100,000 inhabitants in Slovakia, in the EU it was 686. For women, the situation was better, with 483 people with cancer per 100,000 inhabitants, the EU average was 484.
As far as colon cancer is concerned, together with the Hungarians, we are at the top of the European Union countries in terms of its incidence.
Source.