An Introduction to Human Cancers

What is commonly called ‘human cancer’ comprises in fact more than 200 different diseases. Together, they account for about one fifth of all deaths in the industrialized countries of the Western World. Likewise, one person out of three will be treated for a severe cancer in their life-time. In a typical Western industrialized country like Germany with its 82 million inhabitants, >400,000 persons are newly diagnosed with cancer each year, and ≈200,000 succumb to the disease. Since the incidence of most cancers increases with age, these figures are going to rise, if life expectancy continues to increase.