Brain Tumours: Rare Overall, a Leading Cause of Cancer Death in the Young

Malignant brain and central nervous system (CNS) tumours are a small share of the world's cancers, an estimated 321,731 new cases and 248,500 deaths in 2022, but they account for about one in six cancer deaths in children and teenagers worldwide. ^[1][2] In the United States, five-year relative survival after a malignant brain tumour is about one in three.^[3]

A brain tumour can arrive at any age, and it often reaches into the things that make a life feel like one's own: speech, movement, memory, personality, the ability to work or go to school. The statistics below are often quoted by campaigners and sometimes quoted loosely. Our aim is to set out what each figure measures, which tumours it counts and where it comes from, so that the case for better diagnosis, treatment and research rests on numbers nobody can pick apart.

What counts as a "brain tumour" changes the numbers almost fourfold

The single most important thing to know before quoting any brain tumour statistic is which tumours it includes. Many tumours that grow in or around the brain, meningiomas for example, are classed as non-malignant (not cancer) but can still cause serious disability and can be life-threatening because of where they sit. Some registries count them; most cancer statistics do not.

The Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States (CBTRUS) counts both. Its most recent report, published in 2025 and covering people diagnosed in 2018 to 2022, gives an average annual age-adjusted incidence of 26.05 per 100,000 for all primary brain and other CNS tumours. Only 6.86 per 100,000 of that was malignant; 19.19 per 100,000 was non-malignant. The most common malignant type was glioblastoma and the most common non-malignant type was meningioma.^[3] We found no newer CBTRUS report (for 2019 to 2023) as of November 2026.

GLOBOCAN, the International Agency for Research on Cancer's estimates for every country, counts malignant brain and CNS tumours only. Its 2024 edition puts the world age-standardised incidence at 3.37 per 100,000 and mortality at 2.51 per 100,000.^[2] The US cancer registry programme SEER reports cancer of the brain and other nervous system at 6.1 new cases per 100,000 a year (age-adjusted, 2019 to 2023), with an estimated 24,740 new cases and 18,350 deaths in the United States in 2026.^[4] In the UK, Cancer Research UK's figure of 12,533 new cases a year (2019 and 2021 to 2022) covers "brain, other CNS and intracranial tumours", a wider grouping that takes in non-malignant intracranial tumours.^[5]

These rates are not all standardised to the same reference population, and they cover different tumours, so they should not be compared with each other directly. The table shows how definitions differ, not how countries rank.

Rare over a lifetime, but among the largest causes of cancer death in the young

Most brain tumours are diagnosed in older adults. In the United States the median age at diagnosis of brain and other nervous system cancer is 61 and the median age at death is 67; people under 20 account for 2.8% of these deaths and people aged 20 to 34 for 3.0% (deaths in 2020 to 2024).^[4] What sets brain tumours apart is their weight within childhood cancer, where they are among the largest causes of cancer death.

The often-repeated claim that brain tumours are "the biggest cancer killer of children and young adults" is accurate in several places, but only when stated with its country, age band and source:

• Worldwide, under 20 (GLOBOCAN 2024, malignant only): brain and CNS tumours are an estimated 10.92% of cancer cases and 17.25% of cancer deaths in people under 20, compared with 1.44% of cases and 2.39% of deaths in adults aged 20 and over. In children under 15 the shares are about 11% of cases and 17% of deaths; at ages 15 to 19, 7.73% of cases and 13.21% of deaths.^[2] That makes them a leading cause of cancer death in the young worldwide, but this source does not rank them first.
• United States, ages 0 to 19 (CBTRUS): brain and other CNS tumours are "the most common cancer and the most common cause of cancer death in children and adolescents".^[6] CBTRUS counts malignant and non-malignant tumours together for incidence; its death counts are for malignant tumours.^[3]
• United Kingdom, under 40 (Global Burden of Disease estimates for 2021, malignant only): a 2025 analysis by The Brain Tumour Charity of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) results tool for ages 0 to 14 and 15 to 39 counted 372 deaths from brain and CNS tumours in 2021, against 257 from leukaemia.^[7] These are GBD modelled estimates rather than registered deaths, and the authors note a dip during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Across all ages the picture is different: brain and CNS tumours made up about 1.6% of cancer cases and 2.6% of cancer deaths worldwide in 2022.^[2] Both statements are true, and campaigners are on safest ground when they use the age-specific figure with its source attached.

Recorded rates are highest in wealthier countries, and part of that gap is diagnosis

Recorded brain tumour rates rise steeply with a country's level of development. Under GLOBOCAN 2024 estimates, the lifetime risk of being diagnosed with a malignant brain or CNS tumour is 0.16% in countries with a low Human Development Index (HDI) and 0.59% in countries with a very high HDI; the lifetime risk of dying from one rises from 0.14% to 0.48%. The highest national incidence rates were in Montenegro (8.20 per 100,000), North Macedonia (7.48) and Bulgaria (6.96), and the highest regional rate in Northern Europe (5.63); the lowest regional rate was in Micronesia and Polynesia (0.66).^[2]

Some of this may be real variation, but a good part is likely to reflect who gets a scan, a neurosurgical opinion and a pathology diagnosis, and whose cancer is registered at all. The GLOBOCAN 2024 analysis notes that incidence for 33 countries had to be estimated from rates in neighbouring countries, and that the ratio of deaths to new cases was higher in low- and medium-HDI areas, which the authors link to delayed diagnosis and fewer treatment options.^[2] A separate analysis of GLOBOCAN 2022 found brain and CNS cancer cases and deaths concentrated in higher-HDI countries, and that adjusting for the number of physicians roughly halved that link without removing it.^[1]

The pattern is sharpest in children. In 2022 there were an estimated 24,677 new CNS tumours in children aged 0 to 14 worldwide (GLOBOCAN 2022 estimates), the second most common childhood cancer after leukaemia at 12.3% of cases. The age-standardised rate ranged from 0.08 per 100,000 in the Republic of the Congo to 3.7 in Montenegro and the United States: 0.52 in low-income countries against 2.6 in high-income countries. CNS tumours made up 15.9% of children's cancers in very high-HDI countries but only 5.8% in low-HDI countries, even though low- and middle-income countries accounted for 79.6% of the children diagnosed.^[8] It seems unlikely that brain tumours are truly five times rarer in children in low-income countries; under-diagnosis and under-registration are a more plausible part of the explanation, although these data cannot separate the two. Our study of childhood cancer looks at the wider gap.

Survival follows the same fault line. For children diagnosed in 2010 to 2014, the CONCORD-3 programme found five-year net survival from brain tumours ranged from 28.9% in Brazil to nearly 80% in Sweden and Denmark.^[9]

Survival for malignant brain tumours has moved slowly, and for glioblastoma barely at five years

In the United States, five-year relative survival after a malignant brain or other CNS tumour was 34.8% for people diagnosed in 2018 to 2022, against 91.7% after a non-malignant tumour.^[3] SEER gives a similar 32.9% five-year relative survival for brain and other nervous system cancer (diagnoses 2016 to 2022, 21 registries).^[4] These averages combine slower-growing malignant tumours with glioblastoma, the most common malignant type.

For the UK, Cancer Research UK reports that around 1 in 5 (19.2%) people diagnosed with brain cancer in the UK survive their disease for ten years or more (CRUK's figure for 2018), and around 5,600 deaths from brain tumours a year (2022 to 2024).^[5] A UK government announcement in 2018 quoted 14% surviving ten years or more.^[10] The two figures come from different releases and possibly different methods and tumour groupings, so the change between them should not be read as a trend.

The clearest long-run evidence on glioblastoma comes from a 2020 systematic review and meta-analysis of population-based studies, which captures everyone diagnosed in an area rather than only those well enough to join a trial. Pooled two-year survival roughly doubled, from 9% in studies whose recruitment ended before 2005 to 18% in studies that began in 2005 or later, and three-year survival rose from 4% to 11%. Five-year survival, though, went from 3% to 4%, with no apparent improvement.^[11] More people are living longer in the first years after diagnosis, but long-term survival from glioblastoma remains rare.

How quickly a tumour is recognised matters too. The evidence on how long people wait between first symptom and diagnosis, and how often they need repeated appointments first, is covered in our study of delays from first symptom to diagnosis.

Research funding has not matched the years of life brain tumours take

Because brain tumours affect children and people of working age as well as older adults, each death represents an unusually large loss of life-years. A UK analysis comparing cancer deaths with National Cancer Research Institute spending, published in the British Journal of Cancer in 2005, found that people who died of a brain tumour lost on average just over 20 years of life, the highest of any cancer studied, against an average of 12.5 years across cancer sites. The authors argued that years of life lost should be considered when research funds are allocated.^[12]

Charitable funding has not followed that logic either. A study of 119 US cancer nonprofits, with about $6 billion in combined revenue in 2015, found that funding by cancer type was "not proportionate with individual cancer burden on society", and that brain cancer was among those poorly funded on all three measures used: incidence, deaths and person-years of life lost.^[13] This shows a mismatch between funding and the toll these cancers take; it does not by itself show what the right level of funding is.

In the UK, the Department of Health and Social Care set up a task and finish working group on brain tumour research, whose report, published in February 2018, set out how to increase the level and impact of research into brain tumours.^[14] Alongside it, the government announced an estimated £20 million over five years through the National Institute for Health Research, and Cancer Research UK committed £25 million over five years to brain tumour research, including centres focused on childhood brain tumours.^[10] We could not verify at source a current figure for the share of UK cancer research spending that goes to brain tumours, so we do not quote one.

Prevention offers little to offset this. Cancer Research UK estimates that only 3% of brain and other CNS tumour cases in the UK are preventable.^[5] Progress depends mainly on earlier recognition, better treatment and research. Meanwhile, case numbers are projected to grow: one study using Bayesian age-period-cohort models fitted to GLOBOCAN 2022 and Global Burden of Disease 2023 data projects about 605,000 new cases (95% uncertainty interval 292,000 to 1,213,000) and 351,000 deaths (168,000 to 692,000) worldwide by 2050; it is a projection of past trends, not a forecast of what must happen.^[1] Who gets access to trials of new treatments is uneven, as our study of clinical trial access shows.

What the evidence asks of us

• Count every tumour, and say which ones are counted. Non-malignant tumours make up most primary brain tumours recorded in the United States,^[3] yet most cancer statistics, including GLOBOCAN, leave them out.^[2] Registries that do not yet record non-malignant brain tumours should, so that services can be planned for everyone who needs them.
• Fund research in proportion to life lost, not just case numbers. Brain tumours take more years of life per death than any other cancer in the 2005 analysis,^[12] and nonprofit funding in the US has lagged behind the deaths and years of life lost they cause.^[13] Funders, public and charitable, should publish what share of their cancer spending goes to brain tumours and how it compares with deaths and years of life lost.
• Close the survival gap for children. Five-year survival for children's brain tumours ranges from under 30% to nearly 80% between countries,^[9] and recorded incidence in low-income countries is a fraction of that in high-income ones.^[8] Diagnostic imaging, neurosurgery, pathology and registration in lower-income countries are the obvious places to start.
• Measure what matters after diagnosis. Five-year glioblastoma survival has barely moved in population-based data.^[11] Services and researchers should also report quality of life, disability and support for families.
• Quote the statistics carefully. The claim that brain tumours are the leading cause of cancer death in children or young adults is supported for US children and teenagers^[6] and UK under-40s in GBD estimates,^[7] and brain tumours are a leading cause in under-20s worldwide.^[2] Stating the country, age band and source makes the case stronger, not weaker.

For the wider picture across all cancers, see our cancer research library.

Language: this piece says "people with cancer" and "people living with and after cancer", and describes the illness and its treatment plainly, without combat metaphors. Clinical terms such as "stage", "incidence" and "net survival" are used in the sense the cited source defines them.

Why we're publishing this

Brain tumour charities, families and clinicians have spent years arguing that these tumours are under-counted, under-funded and too often under-recognised. Much of that case is made with figures that circulate without their source, age band or definition attached, which leaves them open to challenge. We have tried to set out the strongest, best-sourced version of the evidence, with every figure traced to a registry, an official statistic or a peer-reviewed study, so that people affected by brain tumours and the organisations that support them can use it with confidence.

How to read this data

Incidence (new cases), mortality (deaths) and survival are different measures, and each figure here says which it is. Age-standardised and age-adjusted rates allow fair comparison within one source, but rates from different sources use different standard populations and tumour definitions and should not be set side by side. GLOBOCAN figures are modelled estimates for a stated year: for many countries without full registration, including 33 whose incidence was borrowed from neighbouring countries, they carry real uncertainty.^[2] We give absolute global counts from GLOBOCAN 2022 and rates and shares from GLOBOCAN 2024, because the 2024 analysis we could read gives absolute counts only inside its age-group calculations, not as headline figures.

Survival figures describe people diagnosed years ago and may understate what people diagnosed more recently can expect, or overstate it if diagnosis has shifted earlier without people living longer. US five-year survival is relative survival; the glioblastoma meta-analysis reports pooled overall survival from studies of different places and periods. The UK under-40 comparison uses Global Burden of Disease modelled estimates as analysed by a charity, not registered deaths. We could not verify a current Australian figure or a current figure for the UK share of cancer research spending at source, so we left them out. Evidence from low-income countries is thin; much of the deepest data is from the United States.

Use this data

Free to cite with attribution to Better Health For Everyone. Charities, campaigners and journalists are welcome to reuse these figures and charts. For the underlying figures as a spreadsheet, get in touch.

Important: This article summarises published research for general information. It is not medical advice and cannot be used to diagnose, treat or predict anything about an individual. If you have concerns about your own or someone else's health, please speak to a qualified health professional.

Sources

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