Global impact of radiotherapy in oncology : saving one million lives by 2035

Cancer is a group of over 200 distinct diseases with a common fatal outcome if not treated. In 2016, almost 9 million patients died of cancer, an increase of 18% in just the last ten years. Moreover, in parallel with the predicted rise in worldwide cancer cases from the current 15 million to 24 million in two decades, the annual cancer deaths are expected to amount to 14.5 million by 2035. The good news is there are possibilities to bend this devastating curve: wide implementation of the current cancer prevention efforts will reduce the projected numbers of all cancers by 40-50%, while early diagnosis and advances in cancer treatment resulted in doubling of long-term survival in the past 40"¯years.