More than 4.000 cases of cancer are detected per year in Granada
World Cancer Day is an event that aims to increase awareness and mobilize society to advance in the prevention and control of this disease.
It is one of the main causes of death in Spain: one in three men and one in four women will be diagnosed with cancer throughout their lives. Specifically, in Granada, 4.000 new cases of cancer are caused per year, a figure that rises to 5.300 if non-melanoma skin cancer is included. A cancer that is not usually included in the global figures, since 'fortunately', "it gives few problems and is easy to survive," explains Mª José Sánchez, director of the Granada Cancer Registry and research at the Andalusian School of Health Public. This registry collects data since its creation in 1985.
Within the Andalusian School of Public Health, we work on three different lines of research: descriptive epidemiology, care for cancer patients with differences in their survival; and finally, the causes of cancer. This last line includes the European Prospective Study, which seeks the relationship between nutrition and lifestyles with different types of cancer. Within the 500.000 people who participated in this study 8.000 people were from Granada. In addition, one of the branches of research is 'rare cancers', those suffered by six people out of 100.000, such as cancers in childhood or nasopharynx, that is, those that have a slightly higher incidence low or are less frequent.
On the other hand, Manuel Bayona, Managing Director of the Granada University Hospital Complex, affirms that the first objective of the Biosanitary Research Institute "is cancer." The Granada hospital complex has a differentiating characteristic from the rest of the Andalusian hospitals, it is a comprehensive unit, which combines medical oncology and oncological radiotherapy.
In this sense of advancing for and against cancer and coinciding with a special date such as World Cancer Day, PTS University Hospital will house an ALE linear accelerator. A machine that has involved an investment of 2.800.000 euros and that will start treating patients on February 9, which will be expanded with the transfer of the linear accelerator that is already in the San Cecilio University Hospital. In addition, the Oncohematological Hospital of Granada will be located in the current Maternal and Child Hospital of the city, "Everything to place Granada in the first line of work for cancer research", Bayona comments.
AT THE EUROPEAN LEVEL
Each year there are 1,3 million deaths from cancer in the European Union, according to the latest data provided by the European Statistical Office (Eurostat) for 2013, which represents one in four (26%) deaths registered in the continent. The country with the most deaths from cancer is Germany, with 224.386 deaths in 2013 (25% of all deaths), followed by Italy (168.144), the United Kingdom (161.645), France (155.986), Spain (107.136) and Poland ( 94.184).
The disease is more deadly in men (726.500 deaths) than in women (570.300) and in the population under 65 years of age, since in this group it is responsible for a third (37%) of all deaths, while in the over 65 is responsible for 23 percent of deaths.
By tumor type, the one that causes the most deaths is lung cancer, with 270.000 deaths in 2013 representing 21 percent of all deaths from cancer, followed by colorectal (153.100, 12%), breast (92.600, 16 % of cancer deaths in women), pancreas (81.30, 6%) and prostate (72.700, 10% of cancer deaths only in men).
The report shows differences between countries in the prevalence of cancer deaths with respect to total deaths. Thus, while in some member states it is responsible for one in three annual deaths, such as Slovenia (32%), the Netherlands (31%) or Ireland (30%), in others such as Bulgaria or Lithuania they barely represent 17 or 19 percent respectively of all deaths.
Likewise, although in all countries mortality is higher in men, the proportion is more pronounced in Greece or Spain, where male deaths account for 61 percent of all cancer deaths, followed by Bulgaria or Portugal.
On the other hand, the 2013 data also allows us to observe that mortality in children under 65 is not the same in all countries, since in some states it represents almost half of the deaths at these ages, in the case of the Netherlands (47%), Italy (46%), Spain (45%) or Slovenia (44%). In others, on the other hand, cancer represents only one in four deaths, such as Lithuania (23%), Latvia (24%) and Estonia (26%).
In those over 65 years of age, cancer mortality in Spain is in line with that of the European Union, since it is behind one in four deaths (24%).