Pakistan is facing a serious and growing cancer problem that affects families across the country. In 2025 alone, more than 173,000 people learned they had cancer, and sadly, 118,000 people lost their lives to this disease www.jcpsp.pk . To help you understand how big these numbers are, imagine if every person in a large city got sick with cancer in just one year. That's what Pakistan is dealing with right now.

Cancer is not just affecting one type of person or one part of the country. It's happening everywhere, and the numbers keep going up every single year. Doctors and health experts are very worried because cancer used to be thought of as a disease that only affected rich countries, but now it has become one of the biggest health problems Pakistan must solve ResearchGate . The country's cancer rate has grown so much that Pakistan now has over 185,000 new cancer cases reported every year 世界卫生组织 .

Different types of cancer are affecting Pakistanis in different ways. Breast cancer has become the most deadly type, with the highest number of deaths. In 2019, breast cancer caused 32,118 deaths, and this number has been growing by almost 2% every year since 1990 ecancer.org . This means that more and more women are getting breast cancer, and many of them are losing their lives because they cannot get the treatment they need.

Mouth and lip cancer are also very common in Pakistan. This type of cancer is especially sad because many cases could be prevented if people knew about the risks. Things like chewing tobacco, smoking cigarettes, and using other tobacco products cause many of these cancers. Pancreatic cancer has shown the highest growth rate of all cancers, increasing by more than 3% each year ascopubs.org . This is scary because pancreatic cancer is very hard to treat and often is not found until it is too late.

The number of people dying from cancer has increased dramatically. In 1990, about 73,424 people died from cancer in Pakistan. But by 2019, that number had more than doubled to 179,773 deaths ascopubs.org . This means that over the past 30 years, cancer has become much more common and much more deadly. The overall cancer death rate has grown from 122 people per 100,000 to 153 people per 100,000 ascopubs.org .

One of the biggest problems is that many people in Pakistan do not know they have cancer until it is too late. The cancer death rate in Pakistan is 69.8 people per 100,000, while the rate of new cancer cases is 105.6 per 100,000 canscreen5.iarc.fr . This gap shows that many people are not getting diagnosed early enough, and many who are diagnosed cannot get the treatment they need to survive.

Young people are also getting cancer more often than before. Doctors are seeing more cases of colorectal cancer in younger patients, which is very unusual pakistanbmj.com . Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide, and it causes about 9.4% of cancer deaths in men and 10% in women pakistanbmj.com . When young people get cancer, it is especially tragic because they have their whole lives ahead of them.

Treating cancer costs a lot of money, and many Pakistani families cannot afford it. Cancer treatment requires expensive medicines, special equipment, and doctors who have studied for many years to learn how to fight cancer. Many families must sell their belongings or borrow money to pay for treatment, and some families cannot afford treatment at all. This creates a situation where people who need help the most cannot get it.

Pakistan needs more cancer doctors, better hospitals, and better equipment to fight this growing problem. The country needs to train more doctors who specialize in treating cancer, build more cancer hospitals, and buy modern machines that can find cancer early and treat it effectively. Right now, there are not enough cancer specialists to help all the people who need them.

Health experts are calling for urgent action to address Pakistan's cancer crisis. They want the government to spend more money on cancer prevention, early detection programs, and treatment facilities ResearchGate . They also want to educate people about how to prevent cancer by living healthy lives, avoiding tobacco, eating good food, and getting regular check-ups. Without quick action, the cancer problem will continue to grow and more people will die from diseases that could be prevented or treated.