Cutting tobacco use remains a major challenge

These figures highlight that cancer is not just a problem for the developed world, but also in the developing world. We need to have an eye, not just on infectious diseases in these countries but also chronic diseases like cancer as well.

In the UK, although incidence rates are going up quite steeply, we are making huge progress in terms of improved survival from cancer. Increasingly in the UK it will become more important to think of cancer as a disease that can be managed and treated, rather than paying too much heed to rising incidence rates.

These can hide the true situation that people with cancer have much better outcome than they did in decades past. This is positive for countries such as the UK, but there is still so much more that we could do and the latest figures are a wake-up call in terms of the high number of preventable cancers.

If anything, the new figures probably underestimate the extent of the preventability of cancer because they focus on diet, obesity, physical activity and alcohol. But we know that tobacco is the number one cause of cancer.

Tobacco remains high in the list of challenges we face in the future. That’s why we are lobbying for changes to UK policy on tobacco. We would like to see plain packaging on tobacco as the next step in making sure children are not tempted to take up the habit.

But there are two really important areas in terms of preventing cancer that the latest report does flag up which are often underplayed: alcohol and obesity. People know these things are not good for their health, but in terms of cancer risk their role has not been as well recognised.

There are still some sectors of the policy making community who would say that the evidence on alcohol is not as strong as that for tobacco. But that is absolutely not the case. We are as certain as the scientific community can ever be that alcohol causes a number of different cancers. At the same time as preventing cancers, improving earlier diagnosis is also key to tackling this problem in the future.

l Hazel Nunn is head of health information and evidence at Cancer Research UK.