Cancer cases will increase with aging population, doctor says

New Brunswick will see a roughly 40-per-cent spike in cancer cases in the next 15 years, primarily due to an aging population, according to one of the province's top cancer doctors.

Dr. Eshwar Kumar, the co-chief executive officer of the New Brunswick Cancer Network, says the province's looming increase in cancer cases has other factors beyond simply the aging population.

"Generally in Atlantic Canada, the cancer rates tend to be higher. That, I think, is related to the fact that the smoking rates are much higher in Atlantic Canada. The rate of obesity, the lack of physical activity the sedentary lifestyle we tend to follow here contribute to that," Kumar said.

Cancer rates in the country are expected to increase drastically in the next 15 years, according to a new report by the Canadian Cancer Society.

The report estimates New Brunswick will see about 5,100 new cancer cases and 1,930 cancer deaths this year.

Of those deaths, 970 will be men and 960 will be women. Lung, breast, colorectal and prostate cancers will make up the majority of the new cases.

But it's not all bad news as the report also says the five-year survival rate is now 63 per cent.

Clifford Turner, a recent cancer survivor, said people shouldn't lose sight of prevention.

"More people may be surviving, but it's still an education process. We still have to be aware of the risk factors and I think what's going to happen is that more and more people that survive, there's a confidence in the ability to take care of of these things," Turner said.

"But we can also forget that a lot of what we can do to mitigate that in the first place can be taken care of. Just like anything else, we can get complacent."

Kumar says government policy, programs and public education will all be needed to handle the future increase in cancer cases.

"I think it's got to be a multi-pronged approach. I think there needs to be some policy decisions made, there needs to be introduction programs and I'm very pleased to report that a lot of that is happening in this province," Kumar said.

"We also need to get the message across to New Brunswickers that a healthy lifestyle; eating habits; stopping smoking avoiding unnecessary exposure to the sun … Things that we know could lead to cancer. Risks that we are aware of, risks we can modify are things we need to work on."