World Cancer Day unites the world’s population in the fight against cancer every year on 4 February.
It aims to save millions of preventable deaths each year by raising awareness and education about the disease, pressing governments and individuals across the world to take action.

“Cancer is on the rise worldwide because of population growth and ageing,” Evangelos Filopoulos, President of the Hellenic Cancer Society”, said. In 2040 it is estimated that new incidents will amount to 30,000,000 and deaths to 16,800,000 worldwide.
In Greece, data reveal that cancer is very common, especially breast cancer. In all the new cases of cancer for women in 2018 – 24,468 cases – one-quarter of them – the 7,734 cases – relate to breast cancer, said Mr. Filopoulos.

World Cancer Day was founded by the Union for International Cancer Control to support the goals of the World Cancer Declaration, written in 2008.
Although it can be said that more people are now aware about the disease, cancer detection has unfortunately increased over the years. In 2016, an estimated 1,685,210 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in the United States alone and around 595,690 people died from the disease.
In 2018, there were more than 18 million new cases of cancer worldwide, of which nearly 5 million related to the breast, cervix, colon and oral cavity, which could have been discovered early and treated more effectively, improving patient survival and quality of life.