The role of the Prevention and Control Groups of ICRF is to identify aetiological factors for cancer, to evaluate screening possibilities and to work on the design and analysis of treatment trials. An essential part of these activities is to bring about the changes, whether in smoking or eating habits or participation in screening programmes, in the population which will have the desired effect of reducing cancer mortality, and also its incidence.
Tobacco smoking is still the major preventable cause of premature death in men and women world-wide.
Public perception of the most important risk factors for cancer falsely focuses on ionising radiation, even at small doses, as a major cancer hazard. Although the radiation group within ICRF is small, there has still been significant recent work on the role of domestic radon as a risk factor for lung cancer, cancer risk in personnel exposed to atomic bomb tests, with work on-going in the role of radiation exposure as a risk factor for cancer in children. While smoking and ionising radiation have been established risk factors for cancer for decades, it is much more recently that the role of viruses in the aetiology of human cancer has been clearly established and it is only now that the impact of viruses on the burden of cancer is being appreciated. Screening technology does not stand still and new approaches to cervix cancer screening are being evaluated as well as the major prospective trial of Once Only Sigmoidoscopy, which aims to reduce the incidence and mortality of colorectal cancer by screening. Following detailed study in Uganda and South Africa, the establishment of an International Collaboration of HIV and Cancer will provide new and useful information about carcinogenesis in the coming years.