Abstract
Aim: The anticancer properties of locally applied infrared radiation are widely discussed in the literature. Earth's global emissivity, or the infrared radiation emitted by our planet, is inhomogeneous and varies based on the geophysical characteristics of the region where one resides. This study aimed to test the hypothesis: does local emissivity influence the prevalence of malignant diseases in a region. Materials and Methods: We performed planimetric comparison of two World maps: 1. NASA Spacecraft Map of Earth's Global Emissivity; 2. GLOBOCAN 2020 Global Cancer Data. For comparison we used “Image Compare” tool from Oxford Robotics Research Group. For the area measurements we used FreeMapsTools calculator. Results: The total assessed area was 127,750,000 square kilometers. The distribution according to emissivity was as follows: 107,050,000 km² of area with emissivity above 0.94 and 20,700,000 km² of area with emissivity below 0.94. The distribution according to cancer incidence was as follows: 28,150,000 km² of area with cancer incidence lower than 180 per 100,000 and 99,600,000 km² of area with cancer incidence more than 180 per 100,000. Cancer incidence was found to be statistically significantly associated with higher emissivity of the defined area (p-value < 0.0001). Conclusion: We found a significant association between areas of higher emissivity on our planet and higher cancer incidence. Our findings underscore the need to include environmental factors, in our case infrared radiation exposure, as potential predictor in the deployment of cancer predictive models, such as those involving machine learning and artificial intelligence.