Prevalence of Cancer (and my experiences)

[headshot]

There used to be a stat that said “1 in 3 people will be affected by cancer in their lifetime”. It referred to people who would get cancer and their affected relatives.

The stat is now “1 in 2 people in the UK born after 1960 will be diagnosed with some form of cancer during their lifetime.”

I guess this is a result of people living longer and not being affected by other diseases so much - the stat also says that 60% of those developing cancer will be over 65 - and also the improvements in detecting and diagnosing cancer, meaning more cases are found.

However, I seem to have been surrounded by people suffering from cancer for some time - especially in younger people. I wondered whether I was a bit of an outlier, or if cancer is affecting everyone just as much. Here’s what I’ve experienced:

Ex’s dad died of bowel cancer in his late-60s.
My aunt died of pulmonary embolism (relating to breast cancer) in her 70s
My mum died of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at 71.
My dad has had a couple of skin cancers removed.
A friend died of bowel cancer in her mid-30s.
A colleague’s partner died of bowel cancer in his mid-30s.
A friend had breast cancer in her 40s (recovered after mastectomy).
A friend had bladder cancer in her 40s. (Fully recovered)
Close friend’s friend died of brain tumour in his 40s.
A dancer friend has breast cancer. (In remission)
A friend died of cancer in her 50s (don’t know which form).

And now one of my closest friends has been diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer at 46…same age as me. He has a 6 year old daughter. (He doesn’t smoke or drink. He’s a veggie. Lives very healthily.)

I seem to be surrounded by cancer.

Have to say, I’m struggling a bit with the latest one and am feeling extremely mortal.

FVCK CANCER.

[Woodchopper]

There used to be a stat that said “1 in 3 people will be affected by cancer in their lifetime”. It referred to people who would get cancer and their affected relatives.

I think that will have been from quite a long time ago. I had a look and twenty-two years ago the statistics for the UK were "More than one in three people in England will develop cancer at some stage in their lives. One in four will die of cancer."

The stat is now “1 in 2 people in the UK born after 1960 will be diagnosed with some form of cancer during their lifetime.”

I guess this is a result of people living longer and not being affected by other diseases so much - the stat also says that 60% of those developing cancer will be over 65 - and also the improvements in detecting and diagnosing cancer, meaning more cases are found.

As far as I know, longer lives are an important part of the explanation. But there are also lifestyle factors. Yes, people are smoking less. But there has been a major increase in people who are overweight or obese (which increase the risk of a variety of cancers). In addition there is better screening, so we know about more cancers. In old people this is an issue for prevalence as in many cases in the past someone might have died of something else along with an undiagnosed cancer.

However, I seem to have been surrounded by people suffering from cancer for some time - especially in younger people. I wondered whether I was a bit of an outlier, or if cancer is affecting everyone just as much. Here’s what I’ve experienced:

Ex’s dad died of bowel cancer in his late-60s.
My aunt died of pulmonary embolism (relating to breast cancer) in her 70s
My mum died of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at 71.
My dad has had a couple of skin cancers removed.
A friend died of bowel cancer in her mid-30s.
A colleague’s partner died of bowel cancer in his mid-30s.
A friend had breast cancer in her 40s (recovered after mastectomy).
A friend had bladder cancer in her 40s. (Fully recovered)
Close friend’s friend died of brain tumour in his 40s.
A dancer friend has breast cancer. (In remission)
A friend died of cancer in her 50s (don’t know which form).

And now one of my closest friends has been diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer at 46…same age as me. He has a 6 year old daughter. (He doesn’t smoke or drink. He’s a veggie. Lives very healthily.)

I seem to be surrounded by cancer.

Have to say, I’m struggling a bit with the latest one and am feeling extremely mortal.

FVCK CANCER.

f.ck Cancer.

The obvious question is what proportion the people you mention are of all the people you know. If we are looking as far as things like colleagues' partners or friends of friends then the total pool of people could be hundreds or thousands.

Also, we shouldn't assume that cancers are randomly distributed. Genetic risk factors run in families. Environmental risk factors are also often common to families and communities.

[headshot]

The obvious question is what proportion the people you mention are of all the people you know. If we are looking as far as things like colleagues' partners or friends of friends then the total pool of people could be hundreds or thousands.

With the exception of “close friend’s friend” these are all people I would feel (have felt) comfortable inviting to something like a 50th birthday bash or other big gathering.

People I have personally met or know and would see every few weeks/months, or speak to via social media.

[bjn]

Both my parents died of it, my father of brain cancer (aged 54) and my mother ovarian (aged 85). In both cases it was caught late and they didn't last long.

I'm now at the age (late 50s) so I expected to see increased prevalence among people I know. So now among my close friends and family of similar age there have been three cases of cancer over the last 18 months or so.

While it is profoundly sh.t and horrifying to go through (2021 is currently the worst year my family has experienced), the treatments do work, my wife is now cancer free and in remission, while my friends are nearing the end of their treatment or part way through it.

[Gfamily]

My sister has just retired as a GP. She was commenting that the development of immunotherapy for cancer has been a real game changer over the last few years.
Following a placement at a Dame Cicely Saunders hospice in training, she's always had an interest in Hospice/end of life care, and was working part time in one in SW Wales.
She said that they'd had the recent unexpected experience of a homeless guy with advanced melanoma who had been admitted to the hospice for palliative care - but following treatment had a complete remission - so they had the joyful task of settling him back into a home of his own.

[IvanV]

The stat is now “1 in 2 people in the UK born after 1960 will be diagnosed with some form of cancer during their lifetime.”
...
- the stat also says that 60% of those developing cancer will be over 65 -

So 40% of those developing cancer will be under 65.

So very roughly about 20% of people will develop cancer before 65, and 30% beyond 65.

That doesn't seem inconsistent with your list.

I could write out a similarly lengthy list of cancer sufferers from the people around me. When from time to time another relative or friend gets cancer, and I remember all the others, I tend also to get that "surrounded by cancer" feeling you have. I usually make myself feel better by remembering that my life expectancy is about 90. That's more than the average life expectancy, but that's because now I have more information, not least that I'm not dead yet.

I felt particularly mortal when my doctor sent me off for a colonscopy a couple of years ago because I had a sharp pain when prodded in a certain place, which he thought was on my sigmoid colon. My mother died of a melanoma on her colon (very rare). But I was all clear. It now seems likely the pain was a spasm in my diaphragm muscle, a consequence of having to breathe much harder due to long Covid lung efficiency reduction. Ironically, it was the same doctor who diagnosed me the morning after we'd had the paramedics out for a suspected heart attack, about 8 years ago. A spasm in your intercostal (between your ribs) muscles presents very like a heart attack.

[Chris Preston]

Back when I was at University I remember a statement from an epidemiology lecture that went "If you live long enough, you will die from cancer".

A couple of things with a big influence cancer diagnoses are that people are living longer (i.e. not dying from things other than cancer) and cancer diagnosis is getting better.

I don't know that the experience of multiple people you know getting cancer is all that unusual. Just within my family: my mother died of cancer (last month I got to be older than she was at her death), my grandmother died of cancer, my grandfather died of cancer, my uncle died of cancer and the only one of my cousins to have died did so of cancer.

As we are now better at identifying cancer, people also survive more often. There is a statistic somewhere (I haven't looked for it recently and don't remember the full details) that people who survive one cancer are more likely to be diagnosed with another (I know, dead people cannot be diagnosed with a new cancer, but they compared people diagnosed young with people diagnosed at an older age). I have had two rounds of different cancers, one in my forties and one in my fifties. These were the same cancers my father survived - thanks Dad - but I was diagnosed for each nearly 20 years younger than he was. My younger brother survived cancer diagnosed in his thirties (yes one of the same). My sister-in-law, who is only a few years older than I, has survived three rounds of cancer - the first in her thirties.

I think these days that many people are more cognisant of the genetic component to cancer and hence, like me, are looking for early signs and getting tests done at an early stage. When my cancer surgeon told me that I was a lucky man, my response was "You make your own luck". It can certainly feel overwhelming when a lot of diagnoses come in at once or someone close is diagnosed, but it is only randomness. I know Mrs P freaked out after my second cancer diagnosis, but my attitude was to immediately do what I needed to beat it.

[Stupidosaurus]

I've also had this feeling recently. One of my old Uni friends died of pancreatic cancer this year, another friend was diagnosed with bowel cancer (he's doing OK post surgery, chemo pending). My previous boss is just returning to work after radical surgery for bowel cancer. My current boss had sarcoma a few years ago. I could add a few more. It feels oppressive, but if I add up all the people I know at the same kind of distance then the number affected isn't that large in proportion. Cancer carries a lot of emotional weight and we're all living through bleak times at the moment, maybe this amplifies the impact.