Every fourth person in the European Union dies of cancer

Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the EU
Cancer is a disease that unfortunately is very widespread. Every year, many people die as a result of cancer. Now, doctors are looking at how many people die from cancer every year in the European Union (EU). The result is shocking, with one in four EU citizens dying from the effects of cancer.

There are countless types of cancer that can arise in our human body. Many of these cancers can have fatal consequences. Cancers are widespread in Europe. As many people in the EU die each year as a result of cancer, the EU statistics office Eurostat (http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do) has compiled a recent statistic on the occasion of the World Cancer Day. The German Medical Journal (http://www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichten/65633) reports based on the data that about every fourth death in the EU goes back to a cancer.

Cancers are responsible for around a quarter of all deaths in the EU. (Image: fotoliaxrender / fotolia.com)

Cancer is the leading cause of death in some EU countries
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the EU. In some countries, such as the Netherlands or France, the disease is even the leading cause of death. But how many people actually die every year from the effects of cancer? The EU statistics office Eurostat published World Cancer Day data on the deaths caused by cancer. As a result, more than a quarter of deaths (26 percent) in the EU in 2013 were due to cancer. Thus, cancer was responsible for almost 1.3 million deaths in the European Union, explains the Deutsches Ärzteblatt. The number of deaths varies between different age groups. It seems as if cancer deaths will decline somewhat later in life. In people under the age of 65, cancer was responsible for more than a third of all deaths. This corresponds to about 37 percent of total deaths in the European Union. In people over the age of 65, the deaths from cancer were just under a quarter or 23 percent, reports the Deutsches Ärzteblatt.

25 percent of German deaths are caused by cancer
The data also show that lung cancer is the most common lethal cancer in men. However, most women in the EU are dying from breast cancer. In 2013, a total of 224,386 people died from cancer in Germany, of which 160,056 were male and 102,330 were female. The deaths from cancer in Germany accounted for around 25 percent of total deaths in 2013. Despite these frightening numbers, there were also some successes in the fight against cancer. In recent years, great progress has been made in some types of cancer. For example, some forms of skin cancer, blood and lung cancer have extreme improvements in therapeutic options, experts from the Association of Research-based Pharmaceutical Companies (vfa) told the Deutsches Ärzteblatt. There were no more projects for any therapeutic area than improved treatment for cancer. This process can be observed internationally, but also applies especially to Germany, explains the chief executive of the vfa Birgit Fischer.

Often, pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies no longer work completely independently, according to the Deutsches Ärzteblatt, but most of them associate with other companies. There are also cooperations between such companies and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) or other public research institutions. These include, for example, the "Lead Discovery Center", which was founded by the Max Planck Society, adds Fischer in the article of the medical journal. The motto of this year's Cancer Day is: "We can. I can". And on World Cancer Day, a total of 770 member organizations of the World Cancer Organization "Union international contre le cancer" (UICC) from 155 different countries were involved, reports the Deutsches Ärzteblatt. (As)