Background

Globally, cancer is one of the top causes of death in people below age 70. In the year 2020, approximately 19.3 million newly diagnosed cancer cases, and 10 million cancer-related deaths were reported (Ferlay et al., 2021). Breast, colorectal, liver, lung and prostate cancers have the highest incidence of cancers in Singapore, and over 50% of breast, colorectal, liver, lung and prostate cancers are detected in advanced stages, with poor uptake of current age-based cancer screening (Chua et al., 2021; Lau et al., 2020; Rajendram et al., 2022). Across the scientific and medical communities, there is a growing interest in adopting early cancer detection by screening to improve cancer treatment and control.

Early cancer detection enables the identification of cancers while they are still treatable, and often, asymptomatic. Yet, because of the proportion of the advanced-age population in Asia, screening by age and gender, irrespective of ethnicity, family history, lifestyle and genomic factors will add tremendous pressure on healthcare systems. Risk prediction models, which can aid in identifying at-risk individuals who are most likely to benefit from early cancer screening, are becoming an increasingly important strategy for countries with rapidly ageing populations like Singapore.

Research Frameworks: RISE aims to address challenges that impede early cancer detection, as outlined in five established research themes (Crosby et al., 2022; Crosby et al., 2020): (1) understand the biology and prognosis of early cancer, (2) determine cancer risk, (3) find and validate detection biomarkers, (4) develop accurate detection technologies, and (5) evaluate early detection approaches.

Global Context: Given the current lack of similar centres of excellence in Southeast and East Asia, RISE is strategically positioned to address this critical need.

Global landscape of centres in excellence on cancer prevention

References:

Chua, B., Ma, V., Asjes, C., Lim, A., Mohseni, M., & Wee, H. L. (2021). Barriers to and Facilitators of Cervical Cancer Screening among Women in Southeast Asia: A Systematic Review. Int J Environ Res Public Health, 18(9). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094586

Crosby, D., Bhatia, S., Brindle, K. M., Coussens, L. M., Dive, C., Emberton, M., Esener, S., Fitzgerald, R. C., Gambhir, S. S., Kuhn, P., Rebbeck, T. R., & Balasubramanian, S. (2022). Early detection of cancer. Science, 375(6586), eaay9040. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aay9040

Crosby, D., Lyons, N., Greenwood, E., Harrison, S., Hiom, S., Moffat, J., Quallo, T., Samuel, E., Walker, I., Early, D., & Diagnosis Roadmap Steering, G. (2020). A roadmap for the early detection and diagnosis of cancer. Lancet Oncol, 21(11), 1397-1399. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(20)30593-3

Ferlay, J., Colombet, M., Soerjomataram, I., Parkin, D. M., Pineros, M., Znaor, A., & Bray, F. (2021). Cancer statistics for the year 2020: An overview. Int J Cancer. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijc.33588

Lau, J., Lim, T. Z., Jianlin Wong, G., & Tan, K. K. (2020). The health belief model and colorectal cancer screening in the general population: A systematic review. Prev Med Rep, 20, 101223. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijc.33588

Rajendram, P., Singh, P., Han, K. T., Utravathy, V., Wee, H. L., Jha, A., Thilagaratnam, S., & Pathadka, S. (2022). Barriers to breast cancer screening in Singapore: A literature review. Ann Acad Med Singap, 51(8), 493-501. https://doi.org/10.47102/annals-acadmedsg.2021329