The World Cancer Congress 2024, the biannual conference of the Union for International Cancer Control, brought together doctors, scientists and researchers, as well as current or previous cancer patients, to discuss new evidence and strategies on how to prevent, diagnose and treat the disease.
Held in Geneva, Switzerland, and attended by more than 2,000 participants from about 120 countries, the event featured over 150 sessions. Here are the key takeaways.
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The UK government wants to create a smoke-free society. Under its forthcoming tobacco and vapes bill, the sale of tobacco to people born on or after January 2009 would become illegal. There would also be stronger regulation of vapes. But a study in Germany shows just how hard it will be to make vaping less appealing to children.
In the EU, advertising for tobacco products and e-cigarettes is banned on TV, radio, print, online and social media. Researchers at the German Cancer Research Centre analysed social media posts in German on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Pinterest that mentioned vapes and heated tobacco products over an eight-month period in 2023. Headline findings presented at the conference revealed that despite the online advertising ban, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products were systematically marketed at young people on social media.
One-third of social media posts advertising heated tobacco products were specifically targeted at young people, with vapes and heated tobacco products often portrayed as stylish and trendy accessories, with lots of bright colours and flavours to choose from.
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2. Ovarian cancer costs the UK economy more than £5bn a year
More than 300,000 women globally are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year, with about 70% at the most advanced stages. The first ever multi-country study of the socioeconomic impact of ovarian cancer compared 11 countries. The researchers calculated that ovarian cancer costs $70bn a year in those countries alone, through being out of work, sick days, informal care and loss of life, as well as the cost of treatment. Proportionally, the UK had the highest socioeconomic burden of the 11 countries surveyed, with costs of £5.4bn or 0.24% of GDP.
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3. Unequal treatment for breast cancer for patients with mental illness
Breast cancer is the second most common cancer globally, with more than 2 million people diagnosed each year. Diagnosis and treatment is affected by health inequalities. Initial findings from a study by UK academics presented to delegates showed that people with mental illness are less likely to receive the same level of treatment as those without.
Researchers investigated the likelihood of patients with stage 1, 2 and 3 breast cancer receiving different types of surgery and found that those with mental disorders were significantly less likely to receive breast conserving surgery than those without a history of mental illness. Those who had been hospitalised or had to attend emergency departments were the least likely to receive breast conserving surgery. This may help to explain lower survival rates for patients with a history of mental illness, the authors concluded.
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4. More than 1.4 million children globally lost their father to cancer in 2020
Children who have lost either or both their parents often face health, economic and social disadvantages throughout their life. Figures presented by the International Agency for Research on Cancer at the congress calculated the scale of those losses for the first time.
It estimated that 1.41 million children worldwide lost their fathers to cancer. Nearly three-quarters of deaths were among those aged over 45 and most deaths were owing to gastrointestinal, liver, lung and trachea cancers, which are strongly associated with commercial determinants of health such as alcohol and smoking.
A separate study by US academics on different types of alcohol warning labels demonstrated the difficulties of communicating the links between drinking and cancer. Although a message of “no safe level” of alcohol consumption and cancer increased awareness of the risks of drinking the most, it was also the least believed message, when compared with “the less you drink, the lower the risk” or “the more you drink, the higher the risk”.