This is how many people in Switzerland get cancer

Too much sun, cigarettes, unhealthy food, tattoos, too much of this, too little of that – we all know the warnings about carcinogens. It feels like anything can be carcinogenic and we often don’t take the warnings seriously in everyday life.

But the fact is that every year people get cancer and, in the worst cases, even die from it. In 2022, cancer was the second most common cause of death, after cardiovascular disease, in Switzerland. According to the Federal Statistical Office, about 17,220 people died of cancer last year, including 7,910 women and 9,310 men. Both with an average age of 75 years.

But not all cancer is the same. More than 300 types of cancer are known. Few are hereditary and many arise over the course of life. Here you get an overview.

Cancer is one of the most common causes of premature death. 1 in 16 people will be hospitalized due to cancer during their lifetime. But what exactly is cancer?

The Swiss Cancer League defines the disease as follows:

Explained in more detail: There are genes in every cell. These tell the cells whether to grow, work or divide. Sometimes something goes wrong in some cells and the cells start to grow and divide uncontrollably. This can then result in lumps, also called tumors.

There are benign and malignant tumors. The difference is that benign tumors stay in one place in the body and do not spread, while malignant tumors are different. Cancer cells can spread throughout the body and form lumps anywhere. These are called metastases and can be life-threatening.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, lung cancer is the cancer that causes the most deaths in Switzerland. In 2022, approximately 3,319 people died due to lung cancer. Lung cancer led to death in 18.1 percent of women with cancer and 20.3 percent of men with cancer.

Breast cancer is also the second most common cause of cancer-related death in women (17.2 percent). In 2022, 1,357 women died from it, and there are approximately 6,550 new cases annually.

In men, prostate cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related death (14.5 percent). On average, approximately 7,100 men in Switzerland are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year. In 2022, 1,400 men died from it.

The fourth form of cancer that causes the most deaths is colon cancer. About 1,000 people die from the disease every year, compared to 1,076 last year. About 4,500 people suffer from this disease every year.

This week, the Federal Statistical Office updated the figures on cancer incidence (new cases) and mortality in Switzerland. They show the development of cancer in Switzerland over the years.

If you compare the figures between 2016 and 2020, you see that a particularly large number of people suffer from prostate cancer: an average of about 7,353 people per year. Despite the high incidence, deaths are relatively significantly lower. This is because there are now good chances of recovery for this type of cancer. Yet an average of 1,356 people die from it every year. Compared to other types of cancer, this is quite something.

The number of new cases of breast cancer is also very high. About 6,542 people become ill each year and the mortality rate is 1,385 deaths per year.

The survival rates for lung cancer are very low compared to other types of cancer. Approximately 4,880 people become ill each year and 3,264 people die each year. The figures confirm once again that lung cancer claims the most lives of all forms of cancer.

The annual comparison of new cases and deaths from 1991 to 2020 shows that the number of cancer cases has increased in recent years. Compared to 1991 to 1995, approximately 983 more people died annually from cancer between 2016 and 2020. The numbers of new cases are even more impressive: from 2016 to 2020, there were approximately 16,589 more new cases annually than in the years 1991 to 1995.