When I launched my blog with the sole aim of fundraising for a walk along Hadrian’s Wall, the first couple of posts I published were all about why Chris and I were doing this 84-mile walk. I had to talk about cancer. That was difficult enough but after that, it suddenly got really difficult. What would I tell people ….. I then had a brainwave ….. let’s do an A to Z and I started with a short list (some letters had shorter lists than others (Q, J, Z etc). (p.s. This was not the A to Z Glossary of Terms I have today – this was just an idea for 26 days of blogs!).
Over the years, I’ve been gradually recycling these early posts as a way of updating their templates plus totally changing the content of most. For example, this one was previously the “C words”. Curiously, the last one I updated was the “F words“, so as a placeholder for a great memory, I did not rename it😁
Now, there actually is a term “C word” and it’s used in UK as a synonym for cancer by those who can’t bring themselves to even say the word CANCER. It’s an old fashioned outlook and I’m sure it was also used in other countries. There’s another use of the term “C word” which I won’t cover though! A similar term used in UK is “The big C”, again disguising the word cancer as just ‘C’ but somehow adding a prefix of ‘big’ to somehow emphasise the unspeakable horribleness of the word. I still see this term today but as someone who has been blogging about cancer since 2010, I’m more relaxed about using the actual word rather than disguising with synonyms which may not be fully understood.
The subject which must not be discussed – or is it?
I read a useful article back in 2014 where the writer debated where we might be if, 50 years ago, we were as open about the ‘big C’ as we are now. I’ve watched old movies and old TV series, where actors would look around in all directions, hold their hand up to their mouths before whispering the secret code “big C” when letting someone know some news. Nowadays you cannot turn a page in a newspaper without seeing a story of sadness, inspiration or medical science progress. Certainly, the latter is behind some of the change in thinking in several ways. People are now living longer, and we now have much better tools to discover and treat Cancer (there I said the word). Because we are more open about Cancer, there is more awareness.
Are Cancer rates increasing?
According to many authoritative sites, more than one in three people will be diagnosed with some form of cancer during their lifetime, I’ve read this statistic on both UK and US sites. In fact, Cancer Research UK states that data suggests that 1 in 2 people in the UK born after 1960 will be diagnosed with some form of cancer during their lifetime. That sounds scary but let’s add some perspective not only because cancer itself is heterogenous.
- We are living longer, partly due to medical science.
- Based on statistics, by far the biggest risk factor for most cancers is simply getting older. For example, more than three-quarters of all people diagnosed with cancer in the UK are 60 and over. Most cancers are caused by errors in our genes (around two thirds). The longer we live, the more time we have for errors to build up. And so, as time passes, our risk of developing cancer goes up, as we accumulate more of these faults in our genes.
- Cancer is a heterogenous disease ranging from the most indolent and treatable/curable all the way up to the most aggressive and incurable and our ability to accurately record these has improved. On the left-hand side of that wide spectrum, overdiagnosis is something doctors need to manage and may be a side effect of screening programmes. More cancers are being found than before, many of which might have previously gone undetected and never have caused harm.
- It is generally accepted that two thirds of cancer is unpreventable, leaving a third as preventable, e.g. the effects of smoking, UV radiation, body weight, poor diet and alcohol. (note lung cancer rates are falling). Perhaps some of these risk factors are riskier today than before?
Neuroendocrine Neoplasms are certainly rising given that they are the fastest rising cancer on the planet (it says US but it does reflect the situation in many countries including UK and Australia).
Here is the evidence – click here or on the photo evidence below.
Summary
The section above is pretty controversial in some places. But I trust the words used by Cancer Research UK including the inference on overdiagnosis. And although the graph above is dated 2025, i.e. 10 years after I wrote this blog, it’s an old graph updated for 2025, this has been happening for a long time. I’m shouting about it, others still have their heads in the sand.
We definitely must talk about this cancer type as in addition to the fast rise in incidence rate, many remain underdiagnosed in the invisible NET population.
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Ronny
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Reblogged this on Tony Reynolds Blog.
Think the material you are producing, as you go through the alphabet is excellent. It is easily understood and believe it will still have a life well after you have completed the walk.