[Evolution of cancer mortality. Reflexions of a physician]

Changes in cancer mortality trends in Europe and the USA are correlated with changes in the environment. Active prevention by means of antioxidants and antiproliferative agents etc should be used more extensively and advertisements regarding tobacco habits should rely more on methods intended to project a negative image of smokers. At the present time, anticancer therapies lengthen the survival of patients, which could induce bias in statistics. In the future it seems likely that they will play a greater role against cancer than early detection. Nevertheless, efforts should be made in this direction, at least with regard to young people due to the decreasing mean age of the appearance of several tumors.