It occurs about equally among people of both sexes and can attack any part of the body. The parts most often affected are the skin, the digestive organs, the lungs, and the female breasts. Without proper treatment, most kinds of cancer are fatal. In the past, the methods of treatment gave patients little hope for recovery, but the methods of diagnosing and treating the disease have improved greatly since the 1950's. Today, about one-third of all persons treated for cancer recover completely or live much longer than they would have lived without treatment.
Much research remains to be done to find methods of preventing and curing the disease.
To help further this research, many countries have anticancer programs. There are more than 100 identifiable forms of cancer. Some experts prefer to include sarcoma in the third category, because blood and lymph are forms of connective tissue.