The numbers of Britons diagnosed with liver and skin cancer have sharply increased.
Liver cancer shows the biggest increase at 66 percent while skin cancer increased by 61 percent. Cancer of the mouth increased by 48 percent while kidney cancer and womb cancer rose by 46 percent and 31 percent, respectively.
According to the ONS, liver cancer is currently the most common among all cancers in England. The number of men diagnosed with liver cancer increased from 1,440 to 2,449 from 2003 to 2012 while the number of women went up from 889 to 1,418 in the same study period. The causes are convoluted but historically, the increasing rates are believed to be caused by the rising rates of alcohol consumption. The drinking levels have started dropping in the last few years but the impact on liver cancer is delayed because people are affected by the disease as they age.
The number of oral, liver, kidney and uterine cancer and malignant skin melanoma registrations has increased sharply since 2003. These are heavily related to lifestyle choices including obesity, alcohol consumption and smoking but the main risk factor for liver cancer is hepatitis B or C. Diabetes is also a risk factor.
The ONS also confirmed that three of the most common cancers among men in 2012 are prostate cancer at 30 percent of all cancers, lung cancer at 14 percent and colorectal cancer which represented 13 percent. The most common cancers for women are breast cancer representing 31 percent of all cancers, lung cancer at 12 percent and colorectal at 11 percent.
"More than one in three people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime and these figures reflect the huge number of lives affected," Cancer Research manager or statistics from UK Matt Wickenden said. He added that over four in 10 cancers are preventable by changing lifestyle choices. Cigarette smoking causes almost one fifth of all cancers. However, survival rate doubled in the past 40 years, giving some good news. 50 percent of all patients will survive cancer for at least 10 years.
The rising number of people affected by these fatal diseases must be a wake-up call to the UK government. Cancer is still a problem yet to be fixed and UK has the lowest survival rates for cancer in Europe.
