Christine D. Berg
Special Advisor to the Director, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Maryland, USA

Otis W. Brawley
Chief Medical Officer, American Cancer Society, Georgia, USA

Richard J. Bryant
Cancer Research UK, Royal College of Surgeons of England Clinician Scientist Fellow, Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, Oxford Cancer Research Centre, University of Oxford;
Honorary Consultant Urological Surgeon, Department of Urology, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK

John Burn
Professor, Institute of Genetic Medicine, International Centre for Life, Newcastle University, UK

Hilary Burton
Director, PHG Foundation, Cambridge, UK

Pankaj Chaturvedi
Professor, Head & Neck Surgery, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India

Susmita Chowdhury
Project Manager and Research Associate, West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust; PHG Foundation, Cambridge, UK

Jessica S. Donington
Associate Professor, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, NYU School of Medicine, New York, USA

Louise S. Donnelly
Research Fellow, Genesis Breast Cancer Prevention Centre, University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Trust, Wythenshawe, UK

Rosalind A. Eeles
Professor of Oncogenetics and Team Leader in Oncogenetics, The Institute of Cancer Research, Honorary Consultant in Cancer Genetics and Clinical Oncology, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK

Mark Elwood
Professor of Cancer Epidemiology,
School of Population Health, University of Auckland, New Zealand

D. Gareth Evans
Professor of Medical Genetics, Genesis Breast Cancer Prevention Centre, University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Trust, Wythenshawe, UK; The Christie NHS Foundation Trust & Institute of Cancer Sciences; Manchester Centre for Genomic Medicine, St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester Academic Health Sciences Centre (MAHSC), Institute of Human Development, University of Manchester, UK

Kwun M. Fong
Director, University of Queensland Thoracic Research Centre, and Department of Thoracic Medicine, The Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane, Australia

Apurva Garg
Senior Research Fellow, Head & Neck Surgery, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India

Aleksandra Gentry‐Maharaj
Trial Coordinator, Gynaecological Cancer Research Centre, UCL, London, UK

Fiona J. Gilbert
Professor of Radiology, University of Cambridge, School of Clinical Medicine; Honorary Consultant Radiologist, University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, UK

Michelle Griffin
Honorary Clinical Fellow, Gynaecological Cancer Research Centre, UCL, London, UK

Andrew E. Grulich
Professor and Head, HIV Epidemiology and Prevention Program, Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Alison Hall
Head of Humanities, PHG Foundation, Cambridge, UK

Freddie C. Hamdy
Professor, Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, Oxford Cancer Research Centre, University of Oxford; Department of Urology, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK

Michelle N. Harvie
Research Dietitian, Genesis Breast Cancer Prevention Centre, University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Trust, Wythenshawe, UK

Richard J. Hillman
Associate Professor, HIV, Immunology and Infectious Diseases, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, Australia

Jonah Himelfarb
Internal Medicine Resident, Division of Hematology/Oncology, Genetics and Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children; Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Margaret G. House
Nurse Consultant, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA

Anthony Howell
Professor in Breast Oncology, Genesis Breast Cancer Prevention Centre, University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Trust, Wythenshawe; The Christie NHS Foundation Trust & Institute of Cancer Sciences, University of Manchester, UK

Sacha J. Howell
Senior Clinical Lecturer, Genesis Breast Cancer Prevention Centre, University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Trust, Wythenshawe; The Christie NHS Foundation Trust & Institute of Cancer Sciences, University of Manchester, UK

Robert A. Huddart
Professor of Urological Cancer, The Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK

Ashfaq Khan
Consultant and Head of Colposcopy Service, Whittington Hospital, and Senior Clinical Lecturer, UCL Medical School, London, UK

Fleur Kilburn‐Toppin
Consultant Radiologist, University of Cambridge, School of Clinical Medicine; University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, UK

Jessica Kirby
Senior Health Information Manager, Cancer Research UK, London, UK

Eric A. Klein
Chairman, Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA

Harry J de Koning
Professor of Evaluation of Screening, Department of Public Health, Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Evan Kovac
Urologic Oncology Fellow, Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA

Kevin Litchfield
Division of Genetics and Epidemiology, The Institute of Cancer Research; MRC Skills Development Fellow (Bioinformatics), Translational Cancer Therapeutics Laboratory, The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK

David Malkin
Director, Cancer Genetics Program, Staff Oncologist, Senior Scientist, Genetics & Genome Biology Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Laura A.V. Marlow
Research Associate, Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre, Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, UCL, London, UK

Aileen Marshall
Consultant in Hepatology, The Royal Free Sheila Sherlock Liver Centre, and UCL Institute of Liver and Digestive Health, Royal Free Hospital, London, UK

Henry M. Marshall
Clinical Academic Fellow, University of Queensland Thoracic Research Centre, and Department of Thoracic Medicine, The Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane, Australia

Usha Menon
Research Group Lead, Gynaecological Cancer Research Centre, UCL, London, UK

Tim Meyer
Professor, Department of Oncology, UCL Medical School, and UCL Cancer Institute, London, UK

Sabina Musovic
Research Data Coordinator, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, NYU School of Medicine, New York, USA

Donald Maxwell Parkin
Honorary Senior Research Fellow, Nuffield Department of Public Health, University of Oxford, UK

Howard L. Parnes
Chief, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA

Harvey I. Pass
Stephen E. Banner Professor of Thoracic Oncology, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, NYU School of Medicine, New York, USA

Julietta Patnick
Visiting Professor, Cancer Screening, University of Oxford, UK

Paul Pharoah
Professor of Cancer Epidemiology, Centre for Cancer Genetic Epidemiology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Isobel M. Poynten
Senior Lecturer, HIV Epidemiology and Prevention Program, Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Linda Rabeneck
Vice President, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences; Cancer Care Ontario; Department of Medicine, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

David F. Ransohoff
Professor of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine; Clinical Professor of Epidemiology, Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

Andrew G. Renehan
Professor of Cancer Studies and Surgery, Division of Cancer Sciences, School of Medical Sciences, University of Manchester; Manchester Cancer Research Centre and NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre; Colorectal and Peritoneal Oncology Centre, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, UK

Monique J. Roobol
Professor in Decision making in Urology, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands

Arlinda Ruco
Health Services Researcher, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto; Department of Surgery, St. Michael’s Hospital, Canada

Jonathan M. Samet
Dean and Professor, Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, USA

Valérie D.V. Sankatsing
Department of Public Health, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Rajiv Sarin
Professor, Radiation Oncology & Cancer Genetics, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, India

Peter David Sasieni
Director of King’s Clinical Trials Unit, School of Cancer and Pharmaceutical Sciences, King’s College London, UK

Joanna Sesti
Thoracic and Cardiac Surgeon, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, NYU School of Medicine, New York, USA

Harsh Sheth
Research Associate, Institute of Genetic Medicine, International Centre for Life, Newcastle University, UK

Albert Singer
Emeritus Professor of Gynaecological Research, Institute for Women's Health, UCL, London, UK

Terry Slevin
Director, Education and Research, Cancer Council of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

Andrew J. Stephenson
Director, Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA

Jeffrey S. Tobias
Professor of Cancer Medicine, Department of Oncology, University College London; Honorary Consultant, University College Hospital Foundation Trust, London, UK

Clare Turnbull
Professor of Genomic Medicine, William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University; Senior Researcher, Division of Genetics and Epidemiology, The Institute of Cancer Research; Honorary Consultant in Clinical Genetics, Department of Clinical Genetics, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK

Timothy J. Underwood
Associate Professor in Surgery, Cancer Sciences Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, UK

Jane Wardle
(now deceased) Formerly:Professor, Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre, Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, UCL, London, UK

Sarah Woolnough
Executive Director of Policy and Information, Cancer Research UK, London, UK

Saving lives, saving money, and reducing the huge physical and emotional toll of cancer – the potential gains that can be made through successful cancer prevention and screening should not be underestimated. In the UK, 4 in 10 cancer cases could be prevented, mostly through modifying aspects of our lifestyles which we have the ability to change. Thousands of lives each year are saved through the existing cancer screening programmes. However, there is much scope for improvement, as set out in the chapters in this book.

New screening modalities and refinements to existing screening technologies are in development, which could help save even more lives if the evidence becomes strong enough to support their implementation. More sophisticated risk stratification could lead to tailored screening approaches for individuals or groups, maximizing their efficacy. While these developments hold much promise, research continues to highlight the unintended consequences of screening, and the need for new approaches to minimize harms, as well as clear communication to enable informed decision‐making. Public perceptions of screening are extremely positive, but these strong views should not sway a carefully considered and evidence‐based approach to screening policy‐making.

Legislative changes such as the standardized packaging of cigarettes, and major developments like human papilloma virus vaccination, offer much hope for cancer prevention. But still there are many untapped opportunities. Political discourse on obesity remains predominantly focused on individual choice. We need also to address our obesogenic environment and the influence of industry, while waistlines continue to grow rapidly. The question is, can lessons from tobacco control be transferred to addressing the more complex challenge of obesity?

Our understanding of how and when to deliver health messages for greatest impact is growing, so continued research into successful behaviour change interventions, and making the most of ‘teachable moments’, should prove fruitful. And as we gain more insight into individual risk prediction, this information can increasingly be used to help target prevention – whether lifestyle or medical – to those who will benefit the most. Successful cancer prevention requires upfront investment, but the large pay‐off in savings on cancer care and treatment makes investment in prevention a prudent long‐term approach.

Globally, cancer is becoming an extremely important health problem, including in countries where it has historically not been considered a priority. Increases in longevity, together with high tobacco use and the growing prevalence of obesity, have all contributed to rapidly rising cancer rates in many low‐income countries with scarce resources for treatment. Prevention, therefore, is essential.

Cancer prevention and screening are central to Cancer Research UK's work. Our empowering, accessible, and engaging public information helps raise awareness of the links between lifestyle choices and cancer risk, and our community‐based Roadshow takes nurses into the heart of deprived communities to deliver life‐saving messages with impact. We work with general practitioners and a wide range of health professionals to train, inform, and raise confidence in talking about cancer prevention and screening with patients. We successfully influence for policy changes and government activity to support healthy lifestyles and world‐class, evidence‐based screening programmes.

But effective action on prevention and screening requires many actors working together. From the health professional with a patient, to the marketing we are all exposed to in daily life, nobody can prevent cancer alone. My hope is that increased understanding of the issues surrounding cancer prevention and screening can lead to more effective collaboration and action on these essential issues, and many more lives saved. The potential gains, nationally and globally, are immeasurable.

The multitude of different diseases which are generally known by the single word ‘cancer’ continue to plague humankind. As causes of early mortality such as infectious diseases and malnutrition are increasingly brought further under control even in the developing world, life expectancies are beginning to increase globally and in all probability this trend will continue. So we can realistically expect that the incidence of cancer, for the most part closely associated with increasing age, will continue to grow.

By contrast, however, now that we are developing effective preventive strategies such as tobacco cessation and vaccination against oncogenic viruses, coupled with increasingly successful effective screening methods for many malignancies, there are encouraging signs that many of the major cancers are now capable of being prevented, or at least detected earlier, with an increased cure rate as a result. As editors, we felt it would be timely to produce a book which would address these exciting advances in greater detail, in these critically important fields of prevention and screening. One of our key objectives was to provide a truly global perspective, as in our interconnected world the patients we see are from many highly disparate backgrounds, and the medical and scientific communities worldwide can of course learn so much from each other.

We realize that this is a rapidly evolving field. We have chosen internationally recognized experts who present here their insights and opinions in their particular area of focus. As with any book in an area such as this, advances may possibly outpace the accumulation and subsequent publishing of the chapters. Nonetheless, we have great confidence that our chosen chapter authors are well aware of this inevitability and of the current trends well in advance of them becoming common knowledge. We thank all of them most sincerely for their time and expertise and also for their patience in putting up with the revisions which are – invariably – an intrinsic part of any such endeavour. We hope that this book will be of great interest to professionals in many fields of care, from primary care to policymakers. We are also immensely grateful to Sir Harpal Kumar, Chief Executive Officer of the UK’s largest charity, Cancer Research UK, who graciously agreed to write a foreword for us, and to Prof. Sir Michael Peckham, who after a distinguished and varied career as an oncologist and senior academic has now become an acclaimed artist, and kindly allowed us to use one of his striking images for our book cover.

During the gestation of the book our esteemed colleague Prof. Jane Wardle passed away; her contribution to the field of cancer awareness was internationally recognized and we are very privileged that she worked with us as part of this project.

Finally, we would like to thank Dr Michael Sandberg, General Practitioner, London, UK for helpful comments and the editorial and production staff at Wiley‐Blackwell for their dedication, assistance, and foresight in helping us along at every stage of what proved to be a very large project.

We hope you will enjoy reading the book and will learn from it as much as we have done while assembling it.