(From Montevideo, Uruguay) The breast cancer It is the one that causes the most deaths to women in the region, except in some exceptions in which cervical cancer exceeds it. In Uruguay, mortality from these tumors has remained stable in recent times, but the trend has been changing.
Lung cancers are growing at a rate of 4% annually and could become the leading cause of death, he said. The Observer. “If they continue to smoke like this, by 2030 they will die more from lung cancer than from breast cancer.” said the director of Uruguay’s National Cancer Institute, Robinson Rodriguez.
“The liberation of women brought many benefits in terms of rights and equality but, unfortunately and although it sounds politically incorrect, they also adopted the bad habits of men,” explained the expert at an oncology conference. Later than men, women started smoking tobacco and when men decreased their use, the trend continues to increase, he said.
Breast cancer remains the leading cause of death among cancers in Uruguayan women. In the last 22 years, its evolution has remained stable above 600 cases, except in 2012 (596).
According to data from the Ministry of Public Health (MSP), the colorectal cancer It is second in the causes of death. In 2022, 461 women died from this cause and the figure has remained around for more than 20 years.
The radical change occurs in the trend of lung cancer. At the beginning of the century, this disease was the fourth leading cause of death among cancers, but since 2004 it is the third. In 2021, 161 women died with this disease and in 2022 there were 407.
The impact of smoking on lung cancer is well calculated: 85% of diagnosed patients are or were smokers.
Stomach cancer appears in fourth place as a cause of death from cancer (there were 143 cases last year) and cervical cancer in the last.
Cancers that once killed women the most, such as breast, colon and cervical cancers, are increasingly being prevented or cured, unlike lung tumors.
In men, lung cancer claims the most lives.
According to data from the Honorary Commission of the Fight against Cancer of Uruguay, breast cancer is the most common cancer in the country. The data, which have some differences with those of the MSP, record about 2,000 cases per year.
Rodriguez stressed that Uruguay was a “pioneer” in the fight against tobacco consumption and that there was a notable decrease in its consumption. “It is still too early to know how the regulations will impact cancer development and deaths, because it usually takes 20, 30 or more years to draw conclusions,” according to the director of the Cancer Institute.
In Uruguay, about 14,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed annually and more than 8,000 Uruguayans die from the disease each year, according to a June report by Uruguay’s Honorary Commission for the Fight Against Cancer. The study excludes cases of non-melanoma skin cancer.
One in four people in Uruguay dies from cancer and it is the second leading cause of death after cardiovascular diseases. The most frequent cancers are breast cancers in women and prostate cancers in men, lung and colorectal cancers.
These four cancers account for half of the deaths from this disease in the country.
