An increasing cancer problem is threatening to cause a widespread cancer epidemic and economic peril in Latin America according to the Sun News.

A study published on Friday warned that Latin America's growing prosperity is fueling a cancer epidemic. The epidemic threatens to overwhelm the region unless governments take urgent preventive action.

The "Sun News" reported that Paul Goss, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston led the research team. Gross told BBC News that "more widespread adoption of lifestyles similar to those in developed countries will lead to a rapidly growing number of patients with cancer, a cost burden for which Latin American countries are not prepared."

While Latin Americans contract cancer at lower rates than residents of the United States, they are nearly twice as likely to die from it.

Gross' team of researchers found that the current state of cancer care and prevention in Latin America is incompatible with the socioeconomic changes taking place in the region.

According to Voice of America researchers said that Latin Americans are leading longer more sedentary lives, accompanied by a rise in alcohol consumption, smoking and obesity.

That is not only leading to an increase in cancer rates but a disproportionately high number of cancer deaths.

According to Paul Gross, it will create massive human suffering and it will threaten the economies of the region."

In Latin America more than half of the inhabitants have little or no health insurance and there has been little public health efforts focused on preventive medicine.

Most cancer patients in Latin America do not seek treatment until there are in advanced stages of the disease and by then are too ill to be saved.

In Latin America cancer rates are expected to rise more than 33 percent in the region by 2020.

The death of cancer in the region stands at 13 deaths for every 22 cancer cases however in the United States cancer rates stand at 13 deaths for every 37 cases.