Can Radiotherapy Help Tackle Europe’s Growing Cancer Rates?
The development of radiotherapy and other cancer treatments has been a literal life-saver for millions of people down the years and may be even more so in the years ahead. However, a major question will be whether such developments will be sufficient to combat an expected rise in cancer incidences across Europe.
At any given time in history, some factors have played a larger role than others in causing cancer and also affecting the prospects for patients. Indeed, some factors have declined; better awareness of the dangers of smoking has led to fewer people using tobacco, while an understanding of the risks of sunburn is important in cutting skin cancer.
How Are Cancer Rates In Europe Expected To Change?
Despite this, the number of cancer cases is expected to increase in the years ahead. The European Cancer Information System (ECIS) produced a projection in 2022 that estimated the number of incidences of non-melanoma skin cancer would rise from 2.74 million to 3.25 million by 2040.
What was clear from the data was that ‘demographic change’ was expected to account for just about all of the increase, which would be definition rule out other factors such as a rebound in smoking rates, or new emerging lifestyle or pollution factors.
Part of that demographic change may be due to rising populations, although Europe’s low fertility rate means that the population would drop without immigration. However, another factor is age, because as people live longer, they become more prone to cancer.
Variations Between Countries
What was perhaps most notable was the high level of variation in the figures. The expected increase in cancer rates is 18.39 per cent across the 27 EU states. But this varies from a rise of just two per cent in Latvia to 56.8 in Luxembourg. Here in Austria, the projected figure is 23.1 per cent.
It may be asked whether variations in demographics can account for such disparities between countries. However, there could be some factors that have a significant impact.
For instance, when it comes to changing demographics, race can have a significant impact on cancer rates. For example, black men are much more likely to get prostate cancer than white men. By contrast, however, global studies indicate that black women have a lower incidence of breast cancer than white women.
This may mean that differing changes to the ethnic profiles of countries can have some impact on cancer rates. So too might variations in average age. However, it is notable that Italy, currently the oldest country in Europe, faces a projected increase in cancer rates close to the mean figure for the EU as a whole.
How New Developments In Radiotherapy Will Help
Whatever the cause of rising cancer rates, the challenge for oncologists and researchers in the field has always been to advance treatments. Radiotherapy has already come a long way since it was first used as a palliative treatment at the start of the 20th century.
Some of the most recent developments offer real hope for patients, enabling our radiotherapy centre to offer patients cutting-edge treatments.
For example, the use of FLASH, a form of proton beam radiotherapy, has been made possible in recent years by the development of means of measuring and standardising the absorbed dose of radiation in such a procedure.
This breakthrough in the UK was followed by the first clinical trials in the American city of Cincinnati in 2020, with positive results emerging in 2023. Proton beam therapy is particularly effective in directing radiation at tumours while leaving surrounding tissue almost completely untouched.
In March this year, Cancer Network highlighted another development in radiation oncology, the realm of theranostics, a form of treatment that uses radioisotopes to image tumours for diagnostic purposes as well as treat them.
The article noted that in the United States, to date, just two of these therapies have been approved, for prostate and neuroendocrine tumours, but it is likely several more could follow for other conditions.
The Importance Of Artificial Intelligence
As well as new forms of treatment, the capacity to measure and calibrate radiation doses and predict the impact of these in terms of toxicity for patients (with the consequent side-effects) is another area that can be advanced, thanks to artificial intelligence.
This was the conclusion of a study published in Nature Briefing: Cancer, which discussed how machine learning could help use CT scans to better detect and quantify the likelihood for each breast cancer patient of developing pulmonary fibrosis, a potential downside of irradiation of the breast.
What all this indicates is that while the incidences of cancer are expected to rise across Europe (albeit at a very uneven rate), the last few years have seen a range of developments that mean radiotherapy is increasingly available in new and more effective forms.
Consequently, the prospect of radiotherapy producing ever better patient outcomes is very well founded.
