On 4th February each year, we celebrate World Cancer Day. This global initiative, promoted by the International Union for Cancer Control (UICC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), aims to raise awareness of the impact of cancer—a disease that remains widespread and has a significant public health impact. The day also promotes policies for prevention, early diagnosis and access to treatment.
According to recent data, cancer remains one of the leading causes of death worldwide, posing a growing challenge to public health. Every year, approximately one in five people develops cancer during their lifetime, and the disease accounts for around 20% of premature deaths from major non-communicable diseases.
Projections by international agencies indicate that the annual number of new cancer cases is increasing. It is estimated that, in the coming decades, this figure could exceed 35 million diagnoses per year by 2050—an increase of almost 77% compared to current levels. This rise is driven by demographic factors such as population ageing, as well as greater exposure to lifestyle- and environment-related risks.
Despite an increase in incidence, mortality rates for certain cancers are falling thanks to improvements in prevention and treatment. Effective screening programmes and smoking cessation campaigns, in particular, have already helped save millions of lives. In some countries, five-year survival rates after diagnosis have also increased significantly compared to the past.
This year’s World Cancer Day focuses on the individual experience of cancer patients under the international theme ‘United by Unique’. It reminds us that behind every statistic are stories, families and communities that deserve attention, effective prevention and increasingly personalised therapies.
In Italy and around the world, the fight against cancer requires an integrated approach combining health education, scientific research, early diagnosis and innovative therapies. Against this backdrop, we present the following interview, which takes stock of incidence, prevention, therapeutic advances and research challenges. We talked to Dr Francesco Cognetti, an oncologist and a lecturer at UniCamillus University.
Dr Cognetti, could you please provide the most recent data on cancer incidence worldwide and in Italy?
“It is estimated that approximately 20 million people were diagnosed with cancer worldwide in 2022, with 9.7 million dying from the disease.
In Western countries, incidence and mortality rates are lower thanks to more advanced treatment systems, early diagnosis and effective prevention programmes.
In Italy, there were around 390,000 new cancer cases in 2022—214,000 in men and 175,000 in women. This difference is largely due to the higher incidence of lung cancer among men, a form of cancer that remains particularly lethal today”.
What are the most common cancers?
“The most common cancers are breast, colorectal, lung and prostate cancer”.
According to the IARC, there could be more than 35 million new cancer cases by 2050. How important is prevention?
“This forecast indicates that cancer incidence is set to increase, even though mortality is slightly but steadily declining in Western countries. This makes it essential to invest in both primary and secondary prevention.
Primary prevention involves eliminating or reducing risk factors. Around 40% of cancers are attributable to lifestyle factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, poor diet and certain infections, including HPV. Improving these behaviours could therefore prevent up to 40% of cancers.
Secondary prevention, on the other hand, involves early diagnosis through targeted screening programmes.
For breast cancer, tests are becoming increasingly personalised: standard mammography is no longer the only option. Young women with a strong family history or a suspected BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation undergo magnetic resonance imaging and begin screening before the traditional age of 49.
For colorectal cancer, faecal occult blood tests are used, and individuals with a high family risk undergo periodic colonoscopies.
Pap tests, HPV tests and, above all, HPV vaccination are essential. If these measures were systematically adopted among young people, cervical cancer could virtually be eliminated. Unfortunately, there are still around 3,000 new cases of cervical cancer each year in Italy.
For heavy smokers, low-dose spiral CT scans enable the early diagnosis of lung cancer, allowing for less invasive surgery and a marked increase in survival rates.
For prostate cancer, regular PSA testing enables early detection of the disease and further investigation through additional tests.
For gastric cancer, gastroscopy can be performed regularly in individuals at risk.
All of this must be accompanied by ongoing research, which is essential for developing increasingly effective treatments and making new drugs available to the population”.
On the subject of research, what new drugs are available for treating cancer?
“Cancer research is constantly evolving. In the past, chemotherapy was the only therapeutic option, and it is still used today, particularly in advanced stages of the disease or as adjuvant treatment after surgery for patients at high risk of recurrence.
However, in recent years, new and highly specific drugs have been developed, such as bispecific antibodies, which can target two distinct characteristics of cancer cells simultaneously.
Another significant advancement is antibody–drug conjugates (ADCs), molecules composed of a component that selectively recognises tumour cells and an anti-tumour agent that is delivered directly to them, thereby reducing side effects.
Immunotherapy has profoundly changed the prognosis of many cancers, including melanoma, kidney cancer and certain forms of lung cancer, as well as numerous other types of neoplasm.
Cancer vaccines, including mRNA vaccines, are attracting considerable interest. These vaccines are already being used to treat certain haematological cancers, such as leukaemia and myeloma, and they are now being tested for use in solid tumours, including melanoma, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, colon cancer and stomach cancer. In melanoma in particular, the results are already very promising.
Like the vaccines used to combat the SARS-CoV-2 virus, these cancer vaccines contain an mRNA sequence that codes for a tumour-specific antigen, stimulating the immune system to recognise and selectively target cancer cells”.