site.btaWorld Cancer Day Marked on Feb. 4

World Cancer Day is marked on February 4. The new World Cancer Day theme for 2025-2027 is “United by Unique” places people at the centre of care and their stories at the heart of the conversation, said BTA's Reference Department. 

World Cancer Day has been marked since 2000 at the initiative of the International Union Against Cancer under Article 10 of the Charter of Paris against Cancer, adopted at the first World Cancer Summit in Paris, France, on February 4, 2000. The aim is to raise awareness of the disease in the international community, to take measures to combat cancer worldwide, as well as to improve the way of life of people with the disease, the Reference Department further said.

According to the European Commission (EC), estimates of cancer incidence in 2022 were lower than the European Union (EU) average for both men and women in Bulgaria, while cancer mortality in 2021 was close to the EU average. However, Bulgaria is one of only two countries in the EU to have seen an increase in cancer mortality over the past decade; mortality rates have fallen in all other countries, the EC says.

The age-standardised cancer incidence rate in Bulgaria was the lowest among EU countries at 356 per 100 000 for women (compared to 488 per 100 000 for women in the EU) and 533 cases per 100 000 for men (compared to 684 per 100 000 for men in the EU). However, the low incidence is likely to be the result of incomplete registration of newly diagnosed patients, as the Bulgarian cancer registry has not been operating at full capacity since 2020 and ceased to function in 2023, the EC said.

The European Cancer Information System estimates that cancer cases will increase by 3% by 2040.