Global cancer statistics: GLOBOCAN 2008 released

June 9, 2010

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a part of the World Health Organization, recently released its GLOBOCAN 2008 online resource that provides worldwide estimates of the number of new cancer cases and cancer deaths that occurred in 2008.

GLOBOCAN 2008 shows that most (56%) of the 12.7 million new cases of cancer occurred in developing regions, and most (63%) of the 7.6 million deaths due to cancer occurred in developing countries. And although there are differences in the patterns of cancer from region to region, GLOBOCAN shows that cancer is not just a burden of developed countries and that there are no regions in the world in which cancer is rare.

GLOBOCAN can also be used to estimate the number of future cancer cases and deaths, taking into account both population growth and an aging population. Assuming that the cancer rates remain the same over the next 20 years, GLOBOCAN predicts that in 2030 there will be almost 21.4 million new cancer cases diagnosed and over 13.2 million deaths due to cancer worldwide.