World Cancer Day 2014: Increasing the Awareness

World cancer day (wcd) is celebrated on february 4th each year around the worldto remind the efforts done by united nations, world health organization (who), andother governmental and non-governmental health organizations with the aim of deliveringthe real message about cancer and its treatments to fight against this fataldisease through uniting all the people on global basis (1-4). in brief, cancer is a largegroup of different disorders involving unregulated cell growth. in malignancy, cellsdivide and grow uncontrollably to form malignant tumors and to invade neighboringparts of the body. the cancer tumor may spread to more distant parts of the bodythrough blood or lymphatic systems (5-8). it has been observed that most of the cancercases and related deaths happen in less developed countries that this situation isexpected to get worse by 2030. therefore, it is very crucial to get control over suchcondition throughout the world. furthermore, wcd aims to save millions of preventabledeaths every year by raising alertness and by educating people about malignancy,while forcing the governments throughout the world to take action against thisdisease (2-8). the day is also a key chance for cancer patients to ensure that worldleaders stick to the promises they made at the united nations summit for reducingthe cancer and its impacts. during this particular occasion, participants try to promotehealthy lifestyles, balanced diet, regular physical activity, weight management, aswell as using antioxidants in order to diminish the risk of malignancies (1-8). furthermore,this day is celebrated to plan certain new strategies and to imply various newprograms in order to make people aware of this disorder. wcd is also celebrated tomake non-patient people aware about the preventive methods and the risk factorsof cancer (2-8). the theme of wcd of 2014 is debunk the myths because somepeople believe that if they contact or live with a patient who has cancer, they wouldget cancer as well. the day is, therefore, distinguished to eradicate such types of thesocial myths (5-13) and to make certain concepts about different aspects of the malignancy,such as its symptoms, causing factors and treatment (1, 3, 9). furthermore,on this day, some of activities are organized to indicate that cancer patients shouldnot be treated distinctly, while they are entitled to the same rights as normal peoplein the society (14-19). although they have less chances of existence, they should befulfilled their wishes by their relatives. it should not make them sense that the treatmentremedies are given them for existence as they are dying. in this regards, it isvery important to make them feel better like a normal person. they should be alsoprepared a normal environment in their home and society. it is essential that normalpeople avoid being overly sympathetic to them (20-27).