**2. Cancer pattern**

As mentioned in the introduction, cancer is a major cause of mortality throughout the world. In developed and fast-growing countries, the mortality due to cancer is generally exceeded only by mortality from cardiovascular diseases. According to a report in the Lancet in 1977, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified the 4 of the 10 leading causes of mortality worldwide. They are from Ischemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer. In an earlier report, the fourth leading cause of death worldwide was due to nutritional disorders. The authors in that report predicted that even in 2020, the fourth leading cause of death would be due to nutritional disorders [11]. The incidence of lung cancer is likely to increase in the coming decades, especially in fast-growing countries like China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Russia (BRICS) due to smoking, environ‐ mental pollution and other unknown factors. The incidence of cancer in our ancestors (gatherhunters and pastoral people) living in remote areas of the globe was very low. The average lifespan on the other hand was very low in those days. According to some experts, the dramatic shift away from the eating habits of our ancestors is probably responsible for fostering many of the "diseases of civilization" including cancer [12]. For males and females taken together, the incidence of most of the common cancers are shown in Table 1.


**Table 1.** Estimated number of new cases in men and women in 1996


**Table 2.** Cancer statistics. Cases diagnosed in 2008 (100s). Both sexes

As can be observed, lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide contributing to nearly 13% of the total number of cases diagnosed in 2008. Breast cancer in women is the second common cause of cancer followed by colorectal cancer. The number of lung cancer in man has decreased a little from 18.6% in 1996 to 16.5% in 2008 [20].The global cancer burden doubled in the last three decades of the twentieth century and it is estimated that it will triple by 2030. The major increase would be in low and medium resource countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. At the same time, there is a clear message of hope that some of the cancers can be prevented with advances in sophisticated technology combined with genetic and other screening techniques.
