Huge challenges face healthcare professionals and policy makers in planning for, and providing cancer care over the next decade or so. Chief amongst these will be ensuring that healthcare professionals have the skills and knowledge to treat a greater number of elderly people with cancer, that current inappropriate ageist attitudes towards the elderly cease, and that advances are made in ensuring that cancer patients are able to comply with their treatment.
In her keynote lecture to the European Cancer Conference (ECCO 14) in Barcelona on Monday, Kathy Redmond, who is editor of the magazine Cancer World and also a nurse, will say that these are "huge issues" that need to be addressed now.
"It is almost impossible to predict what the reality will be in 2020," she will say. "But one thing is certain: there will be many more elderly people living with cancer. There is still far too much complacency about this time bomb."
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