GENEVA - Cancer cases are expected to at least double globally during the next 25 years, with the most worrying trend the number of women developing lung and breast cancer, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.
Circulatory diseases, including heart attacks and strokes, will also continue to rise, especially as people in developing countries adopt unhealthy habits such as smoking and sedentary lifestyles, it added.
"Dramatic increases in life expectancy, combined with profound changes in lifestyles, will lead to global epidemics of cancer and other chronic diseases in the next two decades," the UN agency said in its annual report based on 1996 data reported by its 191 member states.