CORRECTED: Tobacco, poverty drive cancer in developing world

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rising tobacco use and poverty willfuel cancer across the developing world, more than doubling thenumber of new cases to 27 million by 2050, experts predicted onThursday.
Cancer is already the No. 2 cause of death globally, afterheart disease and ahead of AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis andother causes. And as people live longer and adopt bad habitssuch as smoking, cancer cases will rise, said Dr. NancyDavidson of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
"It accounts for 10 percent of deaths," said Davidson, whois president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
She cited this week's report by the International Agencyfor Research on Cancer that 7.6 million people will die ofcancer this year, 5 million of them in developing countries.
The statistics contradict a perception that cancer is adisease of rich nations. Cancer deaths have fallen in theUnited States, dropping by more than 2 percent between 2002 and2004.
"There will be 12 million new cancer cases diagnosedworldwide in 2007. By 2050, this number will more than doubleto 27 million, even if the rates don't change," Dr. Lynn Riesof the U.S. National Cancer Institute said in a telephonebriefing.
Of these, 5.4 million cases will be in economicallydeveloped countries and 6.7 million in developing countries,Ries said.
Cancer is caused by a mix of factors, including genes,diet, lack of exercise and, rarely, chemical exposure. But theNo. 1 cause is smoking.
And more people are using tobacco, said the National CancerInstitute's Deirdre Lawrence.
10 MILLION SMOKING DEATHS
"According to World Health Organization current estimates,the annual number of tobacco-related deaths worldwide isprojected to rise from 4.9 million in 2000 to more than 10million by 2020, unless effective interventions take hold,"Lawrence told the briefing.
She said 70 percent of the deaths would be in thedeveloping world.
In 1970, 3.26 trillion cigarettes were smoked globally. In2000, it was 5.7 trillion.
The problem is notably clear in China, said Dr. Tony Mok ofthe Chinese University of Hong Kong.
"China produced about 39 percent of the world's tobaccoproduction," Mok told the briefing. About 6 percent of this wasexported, meaning the rest was consumed in China.
"In other words, we consume about 33 percent of worldtobacco production," Mok said. "We smoke a hell of a lot oftobacco."
Mok said 320 million people were smokers in China in 2004,a 4 percent increase from 2003.
"Cancer prevention has not been a top priority in ourcountry," he said.The same goes for India, said Dr. Ketayun Dinshaw, directorof the Tata Memorial Centre in Mumbai. He said there are noorganized screening programs in India.Nigeria tries but poverty intervenes, said Dr. ClementAdebamowo of the University of Ibadan."There is limited availability of even basic diagnosticoncology facilities," Adebamowo said. "Chemotherapy drugs areavailable but are very expensive and not affordable to themajority of cancer patients."(Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and John O'Callaghan)