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"Latin America Threatened By Mounting Cancer Epidemic, Study Finds

Reuters | Posted: 04/26/2013 4:05 pm EDT

SAO PAULO, April 26 (Reuters) - Latin America's growing prosperity is fueling a cancer epidemic that threatens to overwhelm the region unless governments take urgent preventive action, a study published on Friday warned.

A multinational team of researchers found the current state of cancer care and prevention in Latin America incompatible with the socioeconomic changes taking place in the region, where an increasingly urban populace faces mounting lifestyle-related cancer risks.

Writing in The Lancet Oncology medical journal, researchers said Latin Americans are enjoying the benefits of growing economic prosperity but also are leading longer, more sedentary lives, accompanied by a rise in alcohol consumption, smoking and obesity. That is not only leading to an increase in cancer rates, which are expected to rise more than 33 percent in the region by 2020, but a disproportionately high number of cancer deaths."