Cancer Worldwide: 20.6 Million Diagnoses a Year and Very Unequal Odds

An estimated 20.6 million people worldwide were diagnosed with cancer in 2024 and 9.8 million died from it. Where people live shapes the odds: wealthier countries record far more diagnoses per head, but people in poorer countries are much more likely to die once diagnosed, and that is where the number of new cases is set to grow fastest.

Behind each figure is a household: someone waiting for results, a family rearranging work and care, a community that may or may not have a pathologist, a radiotherapy machine or a palliative care team within reach. The global statistics show how much of the difference between those households comes down to geography and health systems, not to anything the people concerned did. This overview is the front door to our cancer research library.

Around 21 million diagnoses and nearly 10 million deaths a year

The most recent global estimates are GLOBOCAN 2024, produced by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC, part of WHO) and published in July 2026. They cover 34 cancer types in 186 countries and territories. In 2024 there were an estimated 20.6 million new cancer cases and 9.8 million cancer deaths^[1]. WHO describes this as nearly one in six of all deaths worldwide^[3].

A second, independent estimate comes from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, which models every cause of illness and death. For 2023 it put the figures at 18.5 million new cases (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer) and 10.4 million deaths, and ranked cancer as the second leading cause of death worldwide after cardiovascular disease^[4]. The two use different data and methods, so their totals should not be combined or read as a trend, but they agree on the scale.

The weight of cancer is not spread evenly. More than half of all cases (50.7%) and deaths (56.5%) in 2024 were in Asia, home to 58.8% of the world's population. Europe, with 9.2% of the world's population, accounted for 21.0% of cases and 20.0% of deaths. In Africa and Asia, deaths are disproportionately high relative to diagnoses, which the GLOBOCAN authors attribute both to the mix of cancer types and to "a generally lower survival proportion"^[1].

Five cancers account for almost half of all cases, and lung cancer causes nearly one death in five

Lung cancer was the most commonly diagnosed cancer in 2024, with about 2.6 million new cases (12.8% of the total), followed by female breast (11.8%), colorectal (9.9%), prostate (7.5%) and stomach (4.7%) cancer. Lung cancer was also the leading cause of cancer death, with about 1.9 million deaths (19.1%), followed by colorectal (9.4%), liver (7.5%), female breast (7.1%) and stomach (6.6%) cancer^[1].

The gap between a cancer's share of diagnoses and its share of deaths says a great deal about how well it can currently be found and treated. GLOBOCAN 2024 estimated 843,045 new cases of liver cancer and 732,489 deaths; 531,318 new cases of pancreatic cancer and 490,786 deaths. By contrast, there were 1,546,112 new cases of prostate cancer and 419,849 deaths, and 959,281 new cases of thyroid cancer with 48,070 deaths^[1]. These are not survival rates (deaths in a year are not the same people as that year's diagnoses), but the contrast is clear.

Among men, lung cancer ranks first for both cases and deaths; among women, breast cancer does. In countries with a low Human Development Index (HDI, the UN's composite of income, education and life expectancy), breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death and cervical cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer^[1]. Cervical cancer is linked to infection with some types of human papillomavirus (HPV), one of the cancer-causing infections WHO singles out for prevention^[3], so its high rank in the poorest countries reflects unequal access to prevention rather than anything inevitable (see our study of the global cancer gap in low- and middle-income countries).

Richer countries diagnose more cancer; poorer countries see more of it end in death

Fair comparisons need age-standardised rates: cases or deaths per 100,000 people, adjusted to a common age structure so that older populations do not look worse simply for being older. On that basis, all-cancer incidence among men in 2024 ranged from 312.1 per 100,000 in very high HDI countries to 105.7 in low HDI countries. Among women the figures were 257.8 and 121.7. Mortality rates were much closer together: 113.5 versus 74.4 per 100,000 among men, and 75.6 versus 73.7 among women^[1].

Put as lifetime risk, the cumulative risk of developing cancer before age 75 ranged from about 11% in low HDI countries to more than 30% in very high HDI countries for men, and from about 12% to 25% for women. The risk of dying from cancer varied far less: about 8% to 12% for men, and around 7% to 8% for women at every HDI level^[1].

Breast and prostate cancer show the pattern most sharply. Breast cancer incidence was higher in high and very high HDI countries than in low and medium HDI countries (54.1 versus 33.6 per 100,000), yet the breast cancer death rate was higher in the lower HDI countries (14.7 versus 11.7 per 100,000). Prostate cancer incidence was three times higher in higher HDI countries (34.9 versus 13.1 per 100,000), but death rates were similar (7.4 versus 6.9)^[1]. WHO's summary of the previous edition, GLOBOCAN 2022, put the breast cancer contrast in human terms: in very high HDI countries 1 in 12 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime and 1 in 71 will die of it, while in low HDI countries 1 in 27 will be diagnosed and 1 in 48 will die from it^[5].

Higher recorded incidence in wealthier countries does not mean cancer is a smaller problem elsewhere. Lower rates in poorer countries come alongside a different mix of cancers, including more of those linked to infection, and fewer people surviving after diagnosis^[1]. The GBD 2023 study found that 57.9% of new cases and 65.8% of cancer deaths occurred in low-income to upper-middle-income countries^[4].

The same cancer carries very different odds of survival depending on the country

The CONCORD-3 study, which analysed individual records for 37.5 million people diagnosed between 2000 and 2014 from 322 population-based cancer registries in 71 countries, estimated age-standardised five-year net survival (survival from the cancer itself, after accounting for other causes of death). For women diagnosed with breast cancer during 2010–14, it was 89.5% in Australia and 90.2% in the USA, but 66.1% in India. For children diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in the same period, five-year net survival ranged from 49.8% in Ecuador to 95.2% in Finland^[6].

Childhood cancer shows the gap at its starkest. WHO reports that in high-income countries more than 80% of children with cancer are cured, compared with less than 30% in most low- and middle-income countries, and its Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer aims for at least 60% survival for all children with cancer by 2030^[7].

Much of this gap is about whether care is available and paid for. In a WHO survey of 115 countries published in 2024, only 39% of participating countries covered the basics of cancer management in their publicly financed health benefit packages, and only 28% also covered palliative care. Radiation services were four times more likely, and stem-cell transplantation 12 times more likely, to be covered in a high-income than a lower-income country^[5]. CONCORD-3's data end in 2014 and survival has changed since; our study of cancer survival around the world looks at the evidence in more depth.

New cases are projected to rise by two-thirds by 2050, fastest in the poorest countries

GLOBOCAN 2024 projects about 34.4 million new cancer cases worldwide in 2050, a 67% increase on 2024. This is a demographic projection, not a forecast of what will happen: it assumes that today's incidence rates stay the same and lets the population grow (from 8.2 billion in 2024 to 9.7 billion by 2050) and age. The authors calculate that global incidence rates would need to fall by 2% a year for the number of new cases in 2050 to stay at the 2024 level^[1].

The largest absolute increases are projected in high and very high HDI countries (an extra 4.5 million and 3.0 million cases). The largest proportional increases are in the countries least equipped to meet them: a rise of 122% in low HDI countries (from 0.9 to 2.0 million cases a year) and 85% in medium HDI countries, including India (from 2.6 to 4.8 million)^[1].

The GBD 2023 study, using a different model that includes forecasts of risk factor exposure, gives a reference forecast of 30.5 million cases and 18.6 million deaths in 2050, increases of 60.7% and 74.5% from 2024. It projects deaths rising by 90.6% in low- and middle-income countries compared with 42.8% in high-income countries. Its authors attribute most of the increase to demographic change: age-standardised death rates are forecast to change by only −5.6% globally between 2024 and 2050 (95% uncertainty interval −12.8% to +4.6%)^[4]. In other words, a falling risk for any one person of a given age can sit alongside a rising number of people affected. Our study of cancer incidence trends explains how ageing, population growth and changing rates each contribute.

Around four in ten cancers are linked to causes that societies can change

A 2026 WHO/IARC analysis estimated that 7.1 million of the 18.7 million new cancer cases worldwide in 2022 (37.8%) were attributable to 30 modifiable risk factors, including tobacco, alcohol, excess body weight, physical inactivity, air pollution, ultraviolet radiation, nine infections and 13 occupational exposures. The share was 45.4% in men and 29.7% in women, and ranged across world regions from 28.1% to 57.2% in men and from 24.6% to 38.2% in women. Smoking (15.1% of all cases), infections (10.2%) and alcohol (3.2%) were the leading contributors, and lung, stomach and cervical cancers made up nearly half of the potentially preventable cases^[2]. WHO now states that approximately 38% of cancers can currently be prevented by avoiding risk factors and implementing existing evidence-based prevention strategies^[3].

Deaths tell a similar story. The GBD study estimated that the risk factors it measured accounted for 44.4% of cancer deaths worldwide in 2019, with smoking, alcohol and high body mass index the leading factors globally; measured in disability-adjusted life years, the three leading factors in low Socio-demographic Index settings were smoking, unsafe sex and alcohol^[8]. Its 2023 update, using a set of 44 risk factors, put the share at 41.7% (4.33 million deaths)^[4]. Infections matter most where resources are scarcest: WHO estimates that cancer-causing infections such as HPV and hepatitis are responsible for approximately 30% of cancer cases in low- and lower-middle-income countries^[3].

These are population attributable fractions: modelled estimates of how much cancer might be avoided across a whole population if an exposure were removed. They are not proof that a risk factor caused any individual's cancer, and many of the exposures concerned, such as air quality, workplace hazards, tobacco and alcohol availability and access to vaccines, are shaped by policy and circumstance. Nobody is to blame for their cancer. Our study of preventable cancer causes looks at each factor in detail.

What the evidence asks of us

First, prevention at population scale: GLOBOCAN's authors say primary prevention "must be at the forefront", including intensified efforts on tobacco, infections, alcohol, excess body weight and physical activity^[1]. With an estimated 7.1 million new cases a year attributable to modifiable risk factors^[2], tobacco control, vaccination against cancer-causing infections and action on alcohol and air quality are cancer policy.

Second, care that people can reach and afford. WHO notes that most countries do not fully include essential cancer care services, from prevention and screening to diagnosis, treatment and palliative care, in their publicly financed health-benefit packages^[3]. Where only 39% of surveyed countries covered the basics of cancer management and 28% covered palliative care^[5], the survival gaps documented by CONCORD-3 are what would be expected. WHO's childhood cancer target of at least 60% survival by 2030^[7] shows what a concrete, measurable commitment looks like.

Third, planning for the rise that is already built into population change. The steepest proportional increases are projected in low and medium HDI countries^[1], and GBD's authors note that the decline in age-standardised death rates is "insufficient" to meet the UN target for 2030^[4]. Workforce, radiotherapy, pathology and palliative services take years to build.

Fourth, better data. CONCORD's authors call on governments to "recognise population-based cancer registries as key policy tools"^[6]. Many of the estimates in this study are modelled because many countries do not have up-to-date cancer surveillance data^[4]. For charities and campaigners, these figures are a case to put to governments and funders: much of the difference in who gets cancer, and who survives it, is a difference that policy can close.

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

Cancer charities, support groups and hospices make the case every day for earlier diagnosis, fairer access to treatment and better support. This overview brings the main global estimates into one place and says plainly what each figure shows. The aim is to stand alongside people living with and after cancer, their families and the organisations that serve them, and to show how much of what happens after a diagnosis depends on where someone lives rather than on anything within their control.

How to read this data

Incidence, mortality and survival are different things. Incidence is new diagnoses; mortality is deaths in a year; survival is the share of people diagnosed who are alive a set time later. A country can have high incidence and high survival at once.

GLOBOCAN figures are estimates. They combine registry and death-registration data where they exist with modelling where they do not, so figures for countries without complete registries are less certain. GLOBOCAN 2024 replaces GLOBOCAN 2022; the two editions should not be compared as a trend. We use GLOBOCAN 2022 only where a figure (the breast cancer lifetime odds and the WHO services survey) has no 2024 equivalent yet, and label it.

GBD and GLOBOCAN differ in models, years and country groupings (World Bank income or Socio-demographic Index rather than HDI), so we report each separately.

Rates and counts. Comparisons between countries use age-standardised rates (world standard population). Counts, such as 20.6 million cases, are not adjusted and grow as populations grow and age.

Survival data look backwards. CONCORD-3 describes people diagnosed in 2000–14. Rising survival can partly reflect earlier diagnosis (lead time) or the detection of cancers that would never have caused harm (overdiagnosis), so survival is best read alongside mortality.

Projections and attributable fractions are models. The GLOBOCAN 2050 projection assumes constant rates; the GBD forecast models changing risk factors. Attributable fractions estimate potential prevention across a population and say nothing about the cause of any one person's cancer.

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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2. Fink H, Langselius O, Vignat J, et al. Global and regional cancer burden attributable to modifiable risk factors to inform prevention. Nature Medicine, 2026. europepmc.org/article/MED/41634393
3. World Health Organization. Cancer: fact sheet (3 July 2026). WHO, 2026. who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cancer
4. GBD 2023 Cancer Collaborators. The global, regional, and national burden of cancer, 1990–2023, with forecasts to 2050: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2023. The Lancet, 2025. europepmc.org/article/MED/41015051
5. World Health Organization. Global cancer burden growing, amidst mounting need for services (news release, 1 February 2024). WHO, 2024. who.int/news/item/01-02-2024-global-cancer-burden-growing--amidst-mounting-need-for-services
6. Allemani C, Matsuda T, Di Carlo V, et al. Global surveillance of trends in cancer survival 2000–14 (CONCORD-3): analysis of individual records for 37 513 025 patients diagnosed with one of 18 cancers from 322 population-based registries in 71 countries. The Lancet, 2018. europepmc.org/article/MED/29395269
7. World Health Organization. Childhood cancer: fact sheet (10 March 2026). WHO, 2026. who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cancer-in-children
8. GBD 2019 Cancer Risk Factors Collaborators. The global burden of cancer attributable to risk factors, 2010–19: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. The Lancet, 2022. europepmc.org/article/MED/35988567