Cancers in people under the age of 50, previously extremely rare, are on the increase. “They have almost doubled,” says Solange Peters, head of medical oncology at the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) in western Switzerland. In her view, this is “an alarming sign”.

“In the over-65s, the number of cases is increasing, but this is due to the ageing of the population,” she told 24 heures newspaper on Thursday. …