Cancer deaths, especially breast cancer, sharply rose worldwide to 8.2 million in 2012 from 7.6 million in 2008, according to MSN News.
The disease is taking its toll on populations and has tightened its grip in developing countries struggling to treat it.
Last year, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reported that breast cancer was up by 14 percent and killed 522,000 women.
"Breast cancer is also a leading cause of cancer death in the less developed countries of the world," David Forman, IARC's Section of Cancer Information head and the group responsible for compiling global cancer data, said in an interview.
Forman said that increasing incidence of cancer and its resulting deaths are partly attributed to a shift in people's lifestyle in developing nations, and partly because advances to clinically combat the disease are not reaching poor countries.
The IARC's report estimated 14.1 million people have developed cancer in 2012, much higher than its earlier record of 12.7 million in 2008. Of those numbers, 1.7 million were women newly diagnosed with breast cancer last year. The IARC's data shows that breast cancer was up more than 20 percent from 2008.
The GLOBOCAN 2012, the title of IARC's report, provides the most up-to-date estimates for 28 different types of cancer in 184 countries. The report also offers an overview of the burdens of cancer worldwide.
According to the report, the experts expected a substantive increase in cancer cases because of the changing lifestyle patterns experienced worldwide. The lifestyles of more affluent economies are seeping through poor nations' way of life, which lead to rising burdens of cancers linked to reproduction, diet, and hormones.
"An urgent need in cancer control today is to develop effective and affordable approaches to the early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of breast cancer among women living in less developed countries," Christopher Wild, IARC's director, said in an interview.
Cancer-related deaths are relatively much higher in developing regions because people's tumors are often not detected and diagnosed early enough because of lack of screening and access to treatment.
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