A new American Cancer Society report estimates there will be more than 12 million new cancer cases and 7.6 million cancer deaths worldwide in 2007.
The breakdown means that about 20,000 people die from cancer each day across the world, according to the society's first-ever Global Cancer Facts & Figures report.
About 5.4 million of those cancers and 2.9 million deaths will occur in economically developed countries, while 6.7 million cases and 4.7 million deaths will occur in economically developing countries.
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In economically developed countries, the three most commonly diagnosed cancers in men are prostate, lung, and colorectal cancer. In women, breast, colorectal, and lung cancer are most prevalent, according to the report.
The projections are based on data from the Globocan 2002 database compiled by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the American Cancer Society said.
The report includes a special section on tobacco’s increasing toll. An estimated five million people worldwide died from tobacco use in 2000. Of these, about 30 percent (1.42 million) resulted from cancer, with 850,000 deaths from lung cancer alone.
Overall, tobacco was responsible for about 100 million deaths around the world during the 20th Century, and it is projected to kill more than 1 billion people in the 21st century, with the great majority of these deaths occurring in developing countries.
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