Chapter One
Some interesting statistics
There are countless statistics about cancer available on the internet, from just about every country in the world. In this chapter I will present some of them, mainly in order to give you a more global picture of how widespread this illness is. You will be able to note, among other things, that approximately one in every four people who have cancer die from it. On the other hand, when a doctor makes the statement, you have a malignant tumor, he is not necessarily thereby saying, YOU ARE DYING. Why not decide to be part of the three out of four who survive?
It is true that we hear more and more talk about this illness today. Before, people didn’t dare speak so openly about it. But the fear is still there and it’s not hard to understand why. My hairstylist told me recently that twenty years ago she would hear the word “cancer” mentioned in her salon about once a week. Now, it’s several times a day. Whether in relation to oneself or a loved one, cancer has become a very common subject of conversation, not just at the beauty salon, but everywhere, in personal as well as professional environments.
I have worked with many doctors since the founding of my school and most of them agree with me, telling me that this illness is increasingly the first thing they think of when a patient comes to see them about a new problem, especially if the problem is persistent. Quite often they fear it is cancer before they have even obtained the lab analysis results. As they are regularly confronted with this illness, one can hardly blame them.
For information purposes, here are the Canadian Cancer Society’s statistics for 2012:
· 186,400 new cases of cancer (not including the 81,300 cases of skin cancer other than melanoma);
· 75,700 cases of death caused by this illness;
· More than 50% of these cases were lung cancer, colorectal (colon-rectum) cancer, prostate cancer or breast cancer;
· More than a quarter (27%) of all deaths due to cancer are attributable to lung cancer;
· 12% of all deaths are attributable to colorectal cancer ;
· 69% of new cases of cancer and 62% of deaths from cancer affect people between 50 and 79 years of age;
· Between the ages of 20 and 50, the cancer rate is higher for women;
· Before 20 and after 50, the rate is higher for men.
Of 35,000,000 Canadians in 2012, 17,400,000 were men and 17,600,000 were women. Below are the statistics giving the number of new cases and the number of deaths for certain cancers for Canadian men and women in 2012. Note that only the six most common cancers have been cited and therefore the percentage of death is actually higher than that given above.
Among MEN, there were 97,600 new cases of cancer and a total of 39,500 deaths, that is, about 40%. Among Canadian WOMEN, there were 88,800 new cases of cancer and a total of 36,200 deaths, with the same percentage of deaths as the men, about 40%.
Most of the talk among men is about prostate cancer; eventually they learn that this cancer has the smallest percentage of deaths compared to the number of cases discovered. In 2012 in Canada, 73 new cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed each day, while there were 11 deaths from it each day.
It is a very similar situation for women with breast cancer. There is a lot of talk about it even though it is the one with the lowest percentage of deaths. Each day, 62 Canadian women learn that they have breast cancer while about 14 die from it every day.
