World Cancer Day happens every year on Feb. 4.
We’re betting you know someone whose life has been affected by cancer — whether it was theirs or a sick loved one.
World Cancer Day, an annual event founded by the Union for International Cancer Control in Switzerland, aims to bring people together in the fight against the disease. “World Cancer Day 2018 will explore how everyone — as a collective or as individuals — can do their part to reduce the global burden of cancer,” the organization says. Hashtags for the day’s event include #WorldCancerDay and #WeCanICan, highlighting the effort to keep cancer in people’s minds and in the media.
Here are some key points about cancer:
The statistics are staggering.
Nearly 1.7 million people were projected to be diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. in 2016, with approximately 596,000 dying from the disease. It’s one of the leading causes of death across the globe. There were 14 million new cases in 2012, and that number is expected to reach 22 million in the next two decades.
Cancer isn’t just one disease.
There are more than 100 different types of cancer, including breast cancer, lung cancer and colon cancer. The most common kind is breast; more than 255,000 new cases were expected in the U.S. in 2017, according to the National Cancer Institute. The next most common type is lung cancer, followed by prostate cancer. Other frequently diagnosed forms include kidney cancer, bladder cancer and thyroid cancer.
Innovations are underway in the world of precision medicine.
Precision medicine — aka personalized medicine — refers to targeted treatments for specific diseases, including cancer. These typically find vulnerabilities in the makeup of cancer tumors that can be exploited with targeted drugs. Currently, there are such treatments for people with leukemia, breast cancer and colon cancer. Researchers are working to move the field forward by collecting data, but these targeted treatments are not yet typical for cancer and are being tested through clinical trials.
Choosing the best oncologist requires multiple steps.
Faced with a cancer diagnosis, most patients will look for specialists to guide treatment. Oncologists are cancer doctors, and some may be better to seek out than others. “Having been in the field for over a decade — most of the things we did 10 to 15 years ago might be actually the wrong things to do today,” Dr. Karen Reckamp, associate professor of medicine and medical director of thoracic oncology at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte, California, recently told U.S. News. Other recommendations include looking for those with specific board certifications and making sure doctors have all the patient’s test results and information at hand.
We know what causes cancer risk — and what might.
Cigarette smoking and tobacco use, radiation and immunosuppressive medications following an organ transplant are among the known factors that increase cancer risk, says the National Cancer Institute. Other habits, like diet, alcohol and physical activity, have been linked to either increasing or lowering your risk for certain cancers. For example, studies have indicated that alcohol is associated with a higher risk for oral, esophageal and breast cancer (plus colorectal cancer in men).
U.S. News ranks cancer hospitals as part of our Best Hospitals rankings.
The Best Hospitals for Cancer include the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. A complete list is available here.
More from U.S. News
7 Things You Didn’t Know About Lung Cancer
8 Questions to Ask Your Doctor About Colon Cancer
World Cancer Day: Key Facts You Need to Know About Cancer originally appeared on usnews.com
