Global cancer disparities to grow by 2050: study
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Tiffany Herring/Axios
The burden of cancer around the world will become even more uneven by 2050, according to a new study.
The big picture: Cancer cases and deaths will increase most in low- and middle-income countries that may have less access to health care or face competing priorities for allocating resources.
- Higher-quality health care and universal health insurance coverage would help prevent, diagnose and treat cancer around the world, the researchers wrote in a study published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open.
- The COVID pandemic derailed cancer prevention and treatment efforts across the world, and continued wars and cost-of-living crises have further disrupted interventions, they wrote.
By the numbers: Cancer cases are projected to increase by nearly 77% from 2022 to 2050 and reach 35.3 million cases worldwide, the researchers estimate.
- Cancer deaths will reach 18.5 million in 2050, an almost 90% increase compared with 2022.
Between the lines: Cancer is becoming more survivable, but resource disparities and a growing global population mean cases and deaths are expected to rise in many places.
State of play: Cancer cases and deaths are expected to increase in Africa at a rate five times faster than in Europe, the study found.
- Cancer and cancer mortality are projected to increase in all but four countries over the next two decades.
- But death rates will rise 146% in low-income countries, while high-income countries will see a roughly 91% increase and very-high income countries, including the U.S., will see a nearly 57% growth.
- Kuwait is expected to see the largest increase of both cancer incidents and deaths.
- The researchers analyzed data about 36 types of cancers across 185 countries in 2022 to project 2050 rates.
Lung cancer will continue to be the most widespread and deadliest cancer type globally in 2050.
- But deaths from prostate cancer, which is curable when caught early, are expected to increase 136% between 2022 and 2050 — the most of any cancer type.
- Nonmelanoma skin cancer cases will likely increase the most (almost 119%) among cancer types.
- Men are already more likely than women to get and die from cancer worldwide, but those gaps are expected to widen by about 16% and 8%, respectively, in 2050.
What to watch: Cancer disparities exist within the U.S., as well. For example, Black women continue to have the highest cancer death rate of any racial or ethnic group in the U.S.
- But there has been progress to reduce cancer survival gaps in the country over the past 20 years, the American Association for Cancer Research says. The disparity in age-adjusted cancer deaths between Black and white U.S. residents has shrunk from 32% in 1991 to 11% in 2020, per the group.
