World Cancer Day 2023 - An Awareness Program to Save Lives Globally

World Cancer Day on 4th Feb Has Become 23 Years Old Campaigning to Make People Aware of
The members of the summit raise the awareness worldwide to work together to re-imagine a world where millions of preventable cancer deaths are saved and access t life-saving cancer treatment and care is equitable for all. It doesn’t matter, who you are and where you live. This awareness program in the last 23 years has grown into a movement – the positive movement worldwide to combine people under one voice to face the greatest challenges in history. You can see different campaigns; activities and events take place around the world – gathering communities, organizations and individuals at different levels to act as a powerful reminder about the role to play in decreasing the global impact of this deadly disease.
                                          
World Cancer Day Will Be Celebrated as Close to Care Gap in 2023
Going deep inside the cancer, it is resulting in millions of deaths everyday; while awe-inspiring advancements in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment are into limelight. There are also varied other reasons like income, geographical location, education, and discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability and lifestyle – that are affecting the care.

The Year 2023 is based on the theme, “Close the Care Gap” – to celebrate diverse forms and enable people to seek and receive better care that they deserve. From innovative new collaborations to building stronger alliances, varied points will be taken into high consideration this year.

What Is Cancer – Key Factors to Know About? 

• According to the available data, it is 2nd main cause of death globally that hits approximately 10 million people every year to die due to varied stages of cancer in varied forms.
• Doctors say that approx 4% of cancer-related death could preventable as they are associated with modifiable risk factors like alcoholic uses, poor diet, physical inactivity and smoking.
• Almost 1/3 of all deaths occur due to lack of preventive steps through routine screening and early detection as well as treatment.
• Majority of total deaths occur in countries where people are dependent on low-to-middle income; while millions of lives could be saved by simply implementing resources for prevention, early detection and treatment at the right time.
• The Financial status remarks that US$1.16 Trillion is the annual economic cost of the disease.  

In medical terms, cancer is a disease occurring at the time of changes in a group of cells within the human body that may lead to uncontrolled, abnormal growth forming of a lump – called as tumor. Only Leukaemia or cancer of the blood is different that doesn’t form tumor. Tumors, if left unturned, can spread into the surrounding normal tissues or other parts of the body through bloodstream and lymphatic systems – that may affect the digestive, nervous and circulatory systems or release hormones that may affect the body function. The cancerous cells instruct the new cells to stop dividing and leave them to die. In this way, they build up in the body; while using oxygen and nutrients that are often required by other cells to nourish. Later, these cells form tumor and can impair the immune system. It may also cause other change – preventing body from functioning regularly.

The dangerous cancerous cells may take place in one area and spread through the lymph nodes – the clusters of immune cells that are available in the whole body.

Benign and Malignant or Precancerous – Cancer Tumors Are Divided into Different Groups
According to oncologists, cancerous tumors are divided into three categories that are described here:

Benign Tumors – They are actually non-cancerous and rarely threaten life; while they tend to grow quite slowly and don’t spread to other parts of the body. They are usually made of cells that are similar to normal or healthy cells. In case, these tumors grow large, they will only cause a problem like becoming uncomfortable or press on other organs. Some of the highlighted points are the following:

• Grow very large and become uncomfortable or painful
• Visible and unpleasant to look at and press on other body organs 
• Take up space inside the skull (such as a brain tumor) and release hormones that affect how the body works 

Malignant Tumors – Such types of tumors are faster growing in comparison to benign tumors that have the ability to spread and destroy the nearby tissues. Cells of such tumors can break off the main tumor and spread to other body parts through metastasis – a process for the entire journey. At the time of March into healthy tissues at the new site, they start dividing and grow; while the secondary sites are metastases and the condition is referred to as metastatic cancer. Some of the highlighted points are given below:

• Usually grow faster than benign tumours and spread into surrounding tissues and cause damage
• Spread to other body parts in the bloodstream/ through the lymph system to form secondary tumours

Precancerous or Premalignant – It is another category – describing the condition involving abnormal cells that may develop into cancer.