Malignant neoplasms are one of the leading causes of death in children and adolescents worldwide, and approximately 280,000 children under the age of 19 are diagnosed with cancer each year.

As for Bosnia’s Federation (FBiH) entity, the number of patients and deaths from malignant neoplasms has been on the rise over the past ten years.

The incidence rate (morbidity) of malignant neoplasms in 2022 was 87 per 10,000 inhabitants, in 2021 it was 84, and for the sake of comparison, in 2013 and 2014 it was 63 and 67, respectively, according to data from the Institute of Public Health of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The death rate (mortality) from malignant neoplasms in 2022 was 206 per 100,000 inhabitants, and in 2013 and 2014 it was 73 and 188, respectively. The slightly higher death rate was in 2020 during the covid-19 pandemic and it was 218.

As for sick children, i.e. adolescents, from 0 to 19 years of age, the number of malignant neoplasms in 2019 was 143, the following year, 2020, the number was 68, and in 2021, 124 and in 2022, 133.

The FBiH Public Health Institute notes that the number of registered patients from 0 to 19 years of age with malignant neoplasms in 2020 was reduced due to the circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic, i.e. due to the limited availability of health care in that period.

In the report of the Strategy for the Prevention, Treatment and Control of Malignant Neoplasms in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2012 to 2020, it is stated that over two thirds of malignant neoplasms arise under the influence of factors resulting from modern life, which is the reason that these diseases are on the rise in to the whole world.

More than 70 percent of deaths from malignant neoplasms occur in low- and middle-income countries, where resources for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of malignant diseases are limited or non-existent.

At the same time, estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO) speak in favour of the possibility of preventing up to a third of malignant diseases, given that the risk factors cited as etiological factors in a significant number of these preventable diseases. Also, some 30 to 50 percent of patients can be cured if timely diagnosis and adequate treatment.

All these facts hypothetically confirm that at least every third patient unnecessarily gets sick with malignant diseases.