CITATION: Volume 406, Issue 10512p1536-1537October 11, 2025
Global cancer burden: progress, projections, and challenges
Qingwei Luo et al. The Lancet
'The numbers of cancer diagnoses and deaths were projected to rise substantially from 2024 to 2050, by 60·7% (41·9–80·6) and 74·5% (50·1–104·2), respectively. This will result in an estimated 30·5 million (22·9–38·9) new cancer diagnoses and 18·6 million (15·6–21·5) deaths by 2050. [1] These results underline the urgent global public health challenges posed by this forthcoming cancer burden.'
[1] 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. Lancet. 2025; published online Sept 24. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01635-6
COMMENT (NPW): It is estimated that over 40% of cancers are attributable to known risk factors. And yet there is a huge gap between what is known by science and what is known by individual people. The vast majority of the world's p[opulation is unaware of the full range of risk factors for cancer. People may say, well most people know that smoking causes lung cancer and yet they still smoke. The tragedy is not that they continue to smoke despite knowledge (and relatively few *understand* the risk - understanding is not the same as knowing a statistic, as any relative of a lung cancer patient will tell you). The tragedy is that so much of human behaviour leading to cancer is undertaken without knowledge or understanding of the potential consequences.
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org