Cancer is not an inescapable fate. But while prevention can save millions of lives much more cheaply than treatment, it remains an underfunded, much-neglected weapon in the anti-cancer arsenal, experts say.'<br/>'<br/>Some 14 million new cancers are diagnosed each year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO)- a number expected to swell to 21 million by 2030. As the global cost of treatment skyrockets, measures to prevent people getting cancer in the first place are an increasingly important focus in seeking to limit the expected explosion.<br/>' <br/>On the eve of tomorrow's World Cancer Day, Christopher Wild, director of the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), told AFP that the next 20 years, are going to be very dramatic and many countries will have probably twice as many cancers. That's particularly true for countries with limited resources, the low and middle-income countries, he said. With less access to diagnosis and treatment, these countries already bear two-thirds of the world's annual 8.8 million cancer deaths.<br/>'<br/>Treating our way out of the cancer problem is not realistic, Wild said. With prevention, on the other hand, as much as a third of cancers can be avoided today, according to the WHO.'<br/>'<br/>Public enemy number one is tobacco, which will kill a billion people in the world in the 21st century, said Thierry Philip, president of the Institut Curie cancer research centre in Paris.'<br/>'<br/>Physical inactivity, obesity and heavy drinking are risk factors for all sorts of cancer, while eating too much red and preserved meat can lead to cancer of the colon, says the WHO.'<br/>''''<br/>