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id	title	slug	type	status	content	archieml	archieml_update_statistics	published_at	updated_at	gdocSuccessorId	authors	excerpt	created_at_in_wordpress	updated_at_in_wordpress	featured_image	formattingOptions	markdown	wpApiSnapshot
5633	Cancer	cancer	page	publish	<!-- wp:html --> <div class="blog-info">This article was first published in July 2015; updated in April 2018 with latest cancer data for the year 2017 – and revised substantially in November 2019.</div> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In 2017, 9.6 million people are estimated to have died from the various forms of cancer. Every sixth death in the world is due to cancer, making it the second leading cause of death – second only to cardiovascular diseases.{ref}See the relevant data <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-deaths-by-cause">here</a>. This is data from Schutte, A. E. (2017). Global, regional, and national age-sex specific mortality for 264 causes of death, 1980-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Available <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(17)32152-9.pdf">online</a>.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Progress against many other causes of deaths and demographic drivers of increasing <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#shares-by-world-regions">population size</a>, <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy">life expectancy</a> and — particularly in higher-income countries — <a href="https://owid.cloud/age-structure">aging populations</a> mean that the total number of cancer deaths continues to increase. This is a very personal topic to many: nearly everyone knows or has lost someone dear to them from this collection of diseases.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:owid/summary --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-is-one-of-the-leading-causes-of-death">Cancer is one of the leading causes of death.</a></li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-deaths-by-age">Almost half – 46% in 2017 – of all people who die from cancer are 70 or older.</a></li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#the-number-of-cancer-deaths-is-increasing-as-the-world-population-is-growing-and-aging">As the world population is growing and aging the global number of cancer deaths is increasing.</a></li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#is-the-world-making-progress-against-cancer">Adjusted for the increase and aging of the world population the rate of cancer deaths has declined slowly – the same is true for many countries. The world is making very slow progress.</a></li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#smoking-and-lung-cancer">Lung cancer kills most people and smoking is largely to blame. As the share of smokers is declining the rate of lung cancer deaths is following.</a></li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-over-the-long-run">Cancer death rates for US over the last century show that we are slowly making progress against a number of different cancers.</a></li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-across-the-world">Cancer survival rates differ strongly between different countries across the world.</a></li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-by-income">Cancer survival rates often much lower in poorer countries.</a></li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- /wp:owid/summary --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Cancers are defined by the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/what-is-cancer" target="_blank">National Cancer Institute</a> as a collection of diseases in which abnormal cells can divide and spread to nearby tissue. Cancers can arise in many parts of the body – leading to a range of cancer types, as shown below – and in some cases spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymph systems. In this entry we provide an overview of all types of cancer.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Cancer is one of the leading causes of death</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Almost 10 Million people die from cancer annually</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Cancer is one of the world's largest health problems. The <em>Global Burden of Disease</em> estimates that 9.56 million people died prematurely as a result of cancer in 2017. <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-deaths-by-cause">Every sixth death</a> in the world is due to cancer.{ref}The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) put relatively small error margins around this global figure: the lower and upper estimates extend from 9.2 to 9.7 million. Full data on cancer deaths, including upper and lower estimates can be downloaded at the IHME's <a href="http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool">Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Results Tool</a>.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The <em>Global Burden of Disease</em> is a major global study on the causes and risk factors for death and disease published in the medical journal <em>The Lancet</em>.{ref}The latest study can be found at the website of the Lancet here: <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.thelancet.com/gbd" target="_blank">TheLancet.com/GBD</a> The 2017 study was published as GBD 2017 Risk Factor Collaborators – "Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017" and is online <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral-0" target="_blank">here</a>.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Cancer is a particularly common cause of death in richer countries where people are less likely do die of infectious diseases and causes of deaths that lead to very early deaths for people in poverty.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The chart is shown for the global total, but can be explored for any country or region using the "change country" toggle. Switching to one of the richer countries shows that the share of deaths attributed to cancer is higher.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Because cancer is one of the leading causes of death, it is one of the world's most pressing problems to make progress against this disease. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-number-of-deaths-by-cause"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Deaths from cancer</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In the chart we see the total number of deaths in 2017 attributed to the range of different cancers. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The group of tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancers claimed the largest number of lives – 1.9 million in 2017. Next follow colon and rectum, stomach and liver cancer, all claiming between 800,000 and 900,000 globally in 2017.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This chart also allows exploring deaths by country (click 'change country' at the bottom of the chart).</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In exploring patterns across various countries, we see that tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer is the leading form of cancer deaths across most high and middle-income countries. However, the leading form in lower income countries varies: colon and rectum; liver; cervical; stomach; breast and prostrate all top the list in several countries.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-cancer-deaths-by-type"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Cancer deaths by age</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>How are cancer deaths distributed across age groups? And how did this change over time?</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In the first chart we see the breakdown of total cancer deaths by broad age category, ranging from under-5s to those over 70 years old. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Almost half – 46% in 2017 – of all people who die from cancer are 70 or older. Another 41 percent are between 50 and 69 years old – so that 87% of all cancer victims are older than 50 years.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The distribution of deaths across the age spectrum has changed notably since 1990. The share of deaths which occur in those aged over 70 has increased by 8 percentage points, whilst the share in those aged 50-69 and 15-49 has fallen.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Collectively, children and adolescents under 14 years old account for around one percent of cancer deaths — this equates to around 110,000 children per year. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The second chart shows the death rate – the number of cancer deaths of people in a certain age group per 100,000 people of the same age group. Of the people who are 70 years and older more than 1% (i.e. more than 1000 per 100,000) die from cancer each year.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-age?stackMode=relative"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Cancer prevalence</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>What is the prevalence of cancers across the world's population? </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The charts here provide data on the share of a given population with any form of cancer. This is first shown collectively across all cancer types, followed by breakdown by cancer type. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>The prevalence of cancer around the world</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The map shows that we tend to see a higher prevalence of cancer in higher-income countries. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Prevalence of cancer ranges from approximately 5.5 percent of the population in the US down to around 0.4 percent in the countries shown in light yellow.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Globally the share of people with cancer <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer?tab=chart&time=1990..2017&country=OWID_WRL">reached 1.3%</a> in 2017.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:quote --> <blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p><strong>Related chart – the <em>number</em> of people with cancer</strong>: <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer">This map</a> shows the total number of people with cancer across all countries of the world.</p></blockquote> <!-- /wp:quote --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Prevalence of cancer by type</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>When broken down by type of cancer we see that breast cancer is globally the most prevalent form. Following breast cancer are prostrate and colon & rectum cancer. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>When you change this chart to another country you see that across most countries these are the top three cancer forms.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:quote --> <blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p><strong>Related chart – the <em>number</em> of people with cancer, by type</strong>: <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-type">This chart</a> shows the numbers of people with different types of cancer. As we explored above, the prevalence of breast cancer is highest globally; an estimated 17 million had breast cancer in 2017. 10 million had prostate cancer; and 9 million had colon & rectum cancer.</p></blockquote> <!-- /wp:quote --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-types" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Cancer prevalence by age</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Age breakdown of people with cancer</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>We see that globally the majority of cancers occur in older populations. Approximately 70% of cancer cases occur in those aged over 50.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The chart shows that in 2017, 43 percent were aged between 50 and 69 and 27 percent were over 70 years old.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Around five percent of global cancers occur in children and adolescents younger than 15. These are predominantly childhood cancers within the group of leukemia.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-age?stackMode=relative" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Prevalence of cancer by age</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This bar chart compares the prevalence across ages. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Globally 6% of those over 70 years had cancer in 2017. Of the population younger than 50 the prevalence is well under 1% globally.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In all these charts it is possible to switch to any other country: In the US more than 20% of people older than 70 years are living with cancer according to the estimates of the <em>Global Burden of Disease</em> shown here. In Spain it is 9%.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-by-age" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>The global disease burden from cancer</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Death rates only capture the mortality of cancer. However, the impact of cancer on people's lives is more than that. Many live with cancer for long periods and it is important to also capture the morbidity caused by cancer.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) is a metric that captures the total burden of disease – both from years of life lost due to premature death and from years lived with the disease. One DALY equals one lost year of healthy life.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The map shows DALYs from cancers, measured per 100,000 individuals. This is age-standardized to allow comparisons between countries and over time.<em> </em>This is measured across all cancer types. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Also shown are disease burden rates broken down by cancer types. We see that at a global level, the largest burden results from tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer, followed by liver, stomach, colon & rectum, and breast cancer.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Extending the timeline of this chart shows how the disease burden has changed for each type of cancer.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-from-cancers"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-by-cancer-types"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Is the world making progress against cancer?</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp-block-tombstone 29840 --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>About ten million people die from cancer every year. It is the cause of every sixth death.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>It is one of the largest health problems in the world. How is cancer mortality changing over time? </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Three different measures allow us to understand how the mortality of cancer has changed: the number of deaths, the death rate, and the age-standardized death rate. A comparison of how these three measures have changed is shown in the visualization.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Let’s look at what we can learn from each of these. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>The number of cancer deaths increased by 75</strong>%</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>More people than ever before die from cancer – 10.1 million in 2019.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In 1990, 5.8 million people died from cancer. This means we have seen a 75% increase in the global <em>number</em> of cancer deaths.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>The death rate from cancer increased by 21%</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>But in a world with more people, we would expect more people to die. As the world <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth">population is growing</a> the total number of deaths is rising – since 1990, the number of deaths increased <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-by-age-group">from 46 million to 56 million</a> per year.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This of course means that the number of people who <em>did not</em> die of cancer has also increased. To assess whether we are making progress against cancer we cannot rely on the absolute number of deaths alone. It does not account for the increase of the world population.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This is why health statisticians study the number of deaths relative to the size of the population – the death rate. It is measured as the number of cancer deaths per 100,000 people.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The chart shows that the death rate from cancer has increased by 21% since 1990. This tells us that if the world population had not increased, then instead of the number of cancer deaths increasing by 75% (as we saw above), they would only have increased by 21%.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The difference between the steep rise in the <em>number</em> of deaths and the slower rise of the death <em>rate</em> is due to the increase of the global population.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>The age-standardized death rate from cancer declined by 15%</strong></p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Cancer kills mostly older people – as <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age">the death rate by age</a> shows, of those who are 70 years and older, 1% die from cancer every year. For people who are younger than 50, the cancer death rate is more than 40-times lower (more detail <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-prevalence-by-age">here</a>).</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>We would therefore expect that many more people die from cancer in an old population than in a young population. Because <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy">health is improving</a> and <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate">fertility rates are falling</a>, the world is <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/age-structure">aging rapidly</a>. This impacts the change over time that we are interested in: historically, fewer died from cancer because larger parts of the population died before they reached the age when cancer becomes a common cause of death.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Epidemiologists correct for changes in age-profile over time by relying on the so called ‘age-standardized death rate’. This metric tells us what the death rate would be if the age structure of the population had stayed the same over time and would be the same across countries.{ref}The IHME Global Burden of Disease (GBD) <a href="http://www.healthdata.org/terms-defined">define age-standardization</a> as: “A statistical technique used to compare populations with different age structures, in which the characteristics of the populations are statistically transformed to match those of a reference population.”{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Once we correct for both population changes and aging we get the age-standardized death rate from cancer. Globally this has fallen by 15% since 1990.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-rate-and-age-standardized-rate-index" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>The world is making slow progress against cancer</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The comparison of these three metrics shows that the rise in global cancer deaths is driven by two demographic changes: <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#shares-by-world-regions">population growth</a> and population aging.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Adjusted for demographic changes we find that the age-standardized death rate from cancer has fallen by 15% since 1990. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>If you are interested in a particular country you can explore the IHME estimates for all countries in the world by using the “Change country” option in the chart. Cancer survival rates are <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-by-income">higher in richer countries</a> and many of these countries have achieved most progress.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>That the world is slowly making progress is also consistent with two other big trends we have studied before. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Almost a quarter of all <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#smoking-and-lung-cancer">cancer deaths are due to smoking</a>. Since smoking rates are <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/smoking#how-has-the-prevalence-of-smoking-changed-over-time">declining across the world</a> (especially rapidly in rich countries where smoking was very common in the past), we see a strong decline of death rates from lung cancer rates in many countries. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Secondly, as we have <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates">shown here</a>, the 5-year survival rates for cancers are increasing, and the research we covered suggests that this is due to both earlier detection of cancers and better treatment that increased survival.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Given the fact that cancer is one of the world’s largest health problems, a 15% improvement in 29 years does not represent roaring success. But it does show that the world is making slow progress against it.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Cancer death rates</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Age-standardized cancer death rates by country</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The age-standardized death rate from all cancer types are shown in this visualization.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The global trend shows what we have seen in the previous section: while the number of cancer deaths is increasing, individual death rates are falling. In 1990, 143 people out of every 100,000 died from cancer globally — by 2017 this had fallen to 121 per 100,000.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>It is possible to switch this chart to the map view. This shows that in 2017, most countries have age-standardized death rates of 50 to 150 deaths per 100,000 individuals. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-per-100000?tab=map"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Age-standardized death rates by type of cancer</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>For the purposes of assessing the total incidence of cancer, in the chart above we grouped all cancer types together to look at overall trends. However, death rates and progress in reducing mortality incidence varies across the many forms of cancer. In the chart we see the individual age-standardized death rates across cancer types. This is again measured as the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>As we would expect from the leading cause of cancer deaths, rates in tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer are highest globally at 24 per 100,000. This has fallen slightly from 26 per 100,000 in the early 1990s, with even greater declines in some countries (in the US, <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-type?country=USA">rates have fallen</a> from 47 to 34 per 100,000).</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The death rate from stomach cancer has fallen substantially – from 19 per 100,000 in 1990 to 11 per 100,000 in 2017 – and contributed to much of the slow global progress against cancer mortality.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In some cases we have seen dramatic declines over the last few decades. For some, such as stomach cancer there has been notable progress — declining from 19 to 11 deaths per 100,000.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-type"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>The number of cancer deaths is increasing as the world population is growing and aging </h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The number of cancer deaths has increased from around 5.7 million in 1990 to 8.8 million in 2017 as this chart shows. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>As we just saw, this is happening for two big reasons: The first one is that the world population is increasing and with it the number of annual deaths. In 1990 49 Million people died and since then the number of total deaths has increased by more than 7 Million – as <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#how-many-people-die-and-how-many-are-born-each-year">this chart</a> shows.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The second big reason is that the world made rapid progress against causes of death that once killed people early in life – especially infectious diseases. [See our entry on <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death">causes of death</a> for more information.] This means that the world population is aging and more people are dying of causes that kill people at an older age, like cancer. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Because <a href="https://owid.cloud/economic-growth">the world is getting richer</a> and <a href="https://owid.cloud/life-expectancy">fewer are dying an early death</a> we can expect the number of people dying from cancer to increase further.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-type-grouped" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Smoking and lung cancer</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp-block-tombstone 27900 --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>The rise and fall of lung cancer</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This chart shows death rates from lung cancer in the US since 1950. It is possible to view the data for other countries by using the tools in the chart.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>We see the same rise, peak, and decline pattern that we have seen in the cigarette consumption statistics.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>These trends are largely driven by the trends in <a href="https://owid.cloud/smoking">smoking</a>. Smoking is the biggest risk factor for lung cancer and we see that the trends in lung cancer follow those in smoking with a lag.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lung-cancer-deaths-per-100000-by-sex-1950-2002"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Share of cancer deaths attributed to smoking</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The world map shows the Global Burden of Disease estimates of the share of cancer deaths that can be attributed to smoking.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Globally, <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-tobacco?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL">about a quarter</a> of cancer deaths are attributed to smoking.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In most richer countries, the share is even higher.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In poor countries, where fewer people were smoking in the past, tobacco is responsible for a smaller fraction of cancer deaths.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-tobacco" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Cancer over the long run</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Cancer deaths in the US since 1930</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This chart provides a long run perspective on cancer death rates, from 1930 in the United States.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In orange we see again the pronounced peaks for lung cancers in men and then later in women.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>For many other forms of cancer the age-standardized death rates show a long-term decline:</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li>Breast cancer death rates started falling in the early 1990s.</li><li>The death rate for prostate increased until the mid 90s and then started to decline sharply.</li><li>Colon and rectum cancers declined over the last decades in both men and women.</li><li>Pancreas cancer and leukemia increased until the 1970s and then remained at around the same level.</li><li>Uterus, liver, and stomach cancers declined continuously over this 80 year period.</li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-in-the-us"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>What can be done about cancer?</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Cancer survival rates</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Cancer survival rates across the world</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In this charts, we provide the widest coverage across countries of five-year survival rates by cancer type. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This data was published in the The Lancet in 2015 by Allemani et al.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., … & Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) – Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995–2009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673614620389">here</a>.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>You can explore the range of countries using the "Change country" selection in the interactive chart.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-by-cancer-type"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Cancer survival rates across the world by type</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The three maps below show how the five-year survival rates for lung, breast and liver cancer vary across the world. This data is again from Allemani et al. 2015 Lancet paper.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., … & Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) – Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995–2009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673614620389">here</a>.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Lung cancer survival rates across the world</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In lung cancer Japan has the highest five-year survival rates at approximately 30 percent.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In contrast to this only 7% of lung cancer patients are alive five years after diagnosis in Chile, Bulgaria and Mongolia.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-from-lung-cancer"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Breast cancer survival rates across the world</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In breast cancer, higher income countries in particular across North America, Europe and Oceania tend to have five-year survival rates over 80 percent in 2009.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This is almost double that of the lowest nation with available data in 2009 – Jordan – at only 43 percent. A decade earlier the survival rate in Algeria was as low as 17%.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://owid.cloud/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-from-breast-cancer" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Liver cancer survival rates across the world</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Compared to breast cancer the five year survival rates for liver cancer are much lower around he world.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The lowest survival rate in 2009 was in Romania with just 2.3%. In Japan the chance to survive for five years was more than 10-times higher: 27% in 2009.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://owid.cloud/grapher/five-year-survival-rate-from-liver-cancer" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Cancer survival rates by income</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In these two charts we see that the five-year survival rates – following diagnosis – are lower in poorer countries.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Especially for breast cancer survival rates are lower in poorer countries. In high income countries survival rates are above 80% while in many poor countries it is well below 80% or even 60%. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The relationship between lung cancer survival rate and average is less strong. There is significant variability in five-year survival rates between countries of a similar income, but the lowest survival rates are again reported from the poorest countries.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/breast-cancer-survival-rates-vs-gdp-per-capita" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lung-cancer-survival-rate-vs-gdp" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Are cancers caused by genetic or external factors?</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Are cancers caused by genetic factors, or determined by external factors such as behavioral, lifestyle and environmental exposure? </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph {"align":"left"} --> <p class="has-text-align-left">The relative contribution of genetic factors (DNA replication and tissue type) versus external exposure has been a dominant topic within cancer research. The outcomes of such studies are highly important — if genetic factors are found to be dominant then early detection and understanding of the relative vulnerability of different DNA and tissue variations arguably present the best opportunity to reduce cancer burden. In contrast, if external and environmental risk factors dominate, then lifestyle choice which reduces risk exposure is crucial for this reduction.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In a 2015 paper Cristian Tomasetti and Bert Vogelstein, published in <em>Science</em>, the authors conclude that only one-third of cancers are attributable to environmental factors or inherited predispositions; the vast majority result from “bad luck” – random mutations which can occur when DNA replicates in normal non-cancerous cells.{ref}Tomasetti, C., & Vogelstein, B. (2015). Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions. <em>Science</em>, <em>347</em>(6217), 78-81. Available <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6217/78.full">online</a>.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This study therefore argued that, beyond some cancer types which are deterministic (D-tumors) and can be reduced through lifestyle factors or <a href="https://owid.cloud/vaccination">vaccines</a>, the most promising approach to reduction of cancer deaths across most cancers (replicative, R-tumors) is early detection.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>This paper has been highly contested within the scientific literature. A number of later publications in <em>Science</em> provided a rebuttal to these conclusions, suggesting analytical flaws in the prior analysis, and epidemiological evidence which suggests otherwise.{ref}Wild, C., Brennan, P., Plummer, M., Bray, F., Straif, K., & Zavadil, J. (2015). Cancer risk: role of chance overstated. <em>Science</em>, <em>347</em>(6223), 728-728. Available <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/728.1">online</a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Song, M., & Giovannucci, E. L. (2015). Cancer risk: many factors contribute. <em>Science</em>, <em>347</em>(6223), 728-729. Available <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/728.3">online</a>.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Ashford, N. A. et al. Cancer risk: role of environment. Science 347, 727 (2015). Available <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/727.1">online</a>.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Such studies have argue that the role of 'chance' in cancer development was overstated by Tomasetti and Vogelstein, and the role of environmental exposures was understated. Wu et al. (2016) published a study in <em>Nature</em> which concluded that intrinsic factors (which relates to the 'bad luck' DNA replication) account for less than 10-30 percent of cancer development, with the majority resulting from extrinsic risk factors.{ref}Wu, S., Powers, S., Zhu, W., & Hannun, Y. A. (2016). Substantial contribution of extrinsic risk factors to cancer development. <em>Nature</em>, <em>529</em>(7584), 43. Available <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16166.pdf">online</a>.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study attempt — using risk-exposure relationships — to provide attribution of certain risk factors to disease burden and mortality outcomes.{ref}GBD 2016 Risk Factors Collaborators. Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. <em>The Lancet</em>. 14 Sept 2017: 390;1345-1422. Available <a href="http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral">online</a>.{/ref} These risk factors include a wide range, including smoking, diet and nutrition, obesity, alcohol intake, air pollution, & environmental exposures to carcinogens.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In the chart we see IHME estimates of the share of global cancer deaths which are attributed to one of these major risk factors. For example, 80 percent of tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer deaths are attributed to risk factors such as smoking and air pollution. The remaining share of deaths we would therefore assume no attribution to risk factors, and would occur naturally in the absence of such risks (i.e. deaths from lung cancer which would result if no one smoked, zero air pollution etc.).{ref}Note that IHME risk factors do not account for sun exposure, which is a <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/sun-uv-and-cancer/how-the-sun-and-uv-cause-cancer" target="_blank">known risk factor</a> for skin cancer. Attribution for skin cancers in the data are therefore an underestimate.{/ref}</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-risk-factors" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":3} --> <h3>Cancer by income, poverty and inequality level of the country</h3> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Cancer deaths by income</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Whilst cancer prevalence shows a positive relationship to income, death rates from cancer incorporate several factors: cancer prevalence, detection and treatment. When we compare cancer death rates across income we see no strong relationship between these measures. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>There is also <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-from-cancers-vs-income-inequality">no correlation</a> between the level of income inequality in a country and the cancer death rate.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:html --> <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-from-cancers-vs-average-income" width="300" height="150"></iframe> <!-- /wp:html --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Definition of metrics</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Number of deaths, death rates, and age-standardized rates</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>In this entry we define cancer deaths in three fundamental ways:</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li>Absolute (total) number of cancer deaths;</li><li>Cancer death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals within a given population;</li><li>Age-standardized death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals assuming a constant and consistent age-structure of population between countries and across time.</li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>These measures vary in the information they provide. Absolute (total) number of cancer deaths & prevalence figures provide an important indication of the total cancer burden within a given country or society. This is an important metric for a number of reasons, including the need for management and provision of adequate health services (which is dependent on the total societal burden, not just the incidence or risk for a given individual).</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>However, total number of cancer deaths fails to correct for population size and age. Cancer deaths can therefore rise as a result of higher cancer prevalence and/or poorer treatment, but also due to an increase in total population or an aging population. Cancer death rates correct for changes in population <em>size</em>, age-standardized death rates correct for population <em>size and age structure</em>. Age-standardization therefore gives a more indicative measure of the prevalence and incidence of underlying cancer risk factors between countries and with time without the influence of demographic and population structure changes.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:heading --> <h2>Data Sources</h2> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Global Burden of Disease (GBD)</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><strong>Data:</strong> Death rates, absolute number of deaths and DALYS across all cancer types</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong>Global, across all regions and countries</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong>Most metrics available from 1990 onwards</li><li><strong>Available at: </strong>Online <a href="http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool">here</a></li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)/World Health Organization (WHO)</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><strong>Data:</strong> Cancer incidence and mortality of major types of cancer by sex</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong> Approx. 180 countries</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong> 1950-2002</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> IARC and WHO's <a href="http://globocan.iarc.fr/Default.aspx">Globocan 2012 website</a>, and at <a href="http://www.gapminder.org/data/">Gapminder.org</a></li><li class="no-bullet"><em> On Gapminder, search for “cancer” in the search box to find the data files.</em></li></ul> <!-- /wp:list --> <!-- wp:heading {"level":4} --> <h4>National Cancer Institute (NCI) Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program</h4> <!-- /wp:heading --> <!-- wp:list --> <ul><li><strong>Data:</strong> Cancer mortality and incidence for over 30 types of cancers by race/ethnicity, sex and age</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong> United States</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong> 1975-2010</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> <a href="http://seer.cancer.gov/archive/csr/1975_2010/index.html">SEER Cancer Statistics Review website</a></li></ul> <!-- /wp:list -->	{ "id": "wp-5633", "slug": "cancer", "content": { "toc": [], "body": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This article was first published in July 2015; updated in April 2018 with latest cancer data for the year 2017 \u2013 and revised substantially in November 2019.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In 2017, 9.6 million people are estimated to have died from the various forms of cancer. 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Full data on cancer deaths, including upper and lower estimates can be downloaded at the IHME's ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool", "children": [ { "text": "Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Results Tool", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Global Burden of Disease", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " is a major global study on the causes and risk factors for death and disease published in the medical journal ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "The Lancet", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ".{ref}The latest study can be found at the website of the Lancet here: ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.thelancet.com/gbd", "children": [ { "text": "TheLancet.com/GBD", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " The 2017 study was published as GBD 2017 Risk Factor Collaborators \u2013 \"Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017\" and is online ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral-0", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Cancer is a particularly common cause of death in richer countries where people are less likely do die of infectious diseases and causes of deaths that lead to very early deaths for people in poverty.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The chart is shown for the global total, but can be explored for any country or region using the \"change country\" toggle. Switching to one of the richer countries shows that the share of deaths attributed to cancer is higher.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Because cancer is one of the leading causes of death, it is one of the world's most pressing problems to make progress against this disease. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-number-of-deaths-by-cause", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Deaths from cancer", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In the chart we see the total number of deaths in 2017 attributed to the range of different cancers. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The group of tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancers claimed the largest number of lives \u2013 1.9 million in 2017. Next follow colon and rectum, stomach and liver cancer, all claiming between 800,000 and 900,000 globally in 2017.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This chart also allows exploring deaths by country (click 'change country' at the bottom of the chart).", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In exploring patterns across various countries, we see that tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer is the leading form of cancer deaths across most high and middle-income countries. However, the leading form in lower income countries varies: colon and rectum; liver; cervical; stomach; breast and prostrate all top the list in several countries.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-cancer-deaths-by-type", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cancer deaths by age", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "How are cancer deaths distributed across age groups? And how did this change over time?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In the first chart we see the breakdown of total cancer deaths by broad age category, ranging from under-5s to those over 70 years old. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Almost half \u2013 46% in 2017 \u2013 of all people who die from cancer are 70 or older. Another 41 percent are between 50 and 69 years old \u2013 so that 87% of all cancer victims are older than 50 years.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The distribution of deaths across the age spectrum has changed notably since 1990. The share of deaths which occur in those aged over 70 has increased by 8 percentage points, whilst the share in those aged 50-69 and 15-49 has fallen.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Collectively, children and adolescents under 14 years old account for around one percent of cancer deaths\u00a0\u2014 this equates to around 110,000 children per year.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The second chart shows the death rate \u2013 the number of cancer deaths of people in a certain age group per 100,000 people of the same age group. Of the people who are 70 years and older more than 1% (i.e. more than 1000 per 100,000) die from cancer each year.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-age?stackMode=relative", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cancer prevalence", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "What is the prevalence of cancers across the world's population? ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The charts here provide data on the share of a given population with any form of cancer. This is first shown collectively across all cancer types, followed by breakdown by cancer type. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "The prevalence of cancer around the world", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The map shows that we tend to see a higher prevalence of cancer in higher-income countries. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Prevalence of cancer ranges from approximately 5.5 percent of the population in the US down to around 0.4 percent in the countries shown in light yellow.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Globally the share of people with cancer ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer?tab=chart&time=1990..2017&country=OWID_WRL", "children": [ { "text": "reached 1.3%", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " in 2017.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer", "type": "prominent-link", "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Prevalence of cancer by type", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "When broken down by type of cancer we see that breast cancer is globally the most prevalent form. Following breast cancer are prostrate and colon & rectum cancer. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "When you change this chart to another country you see that across most countries these are the top three cancer forms.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-type", "type": "prominent-link", "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-types", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cancer prevalence by age", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Age breakdown of people with cancer", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "We see that globally the majority of cancers occur in older populations. Approximately 70% of cancer cases occur in those aged over 50.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The chart shows that in 2017, 43 percent were aged between 50 and 69 and 27 percent were over 70 years old.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Around five percent of global cancers occur in children and adolescents younger than 15. These are predominantly childhood cancers within the group of leukemia.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-age?stackMode=relative", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Prevalence of cancer by age", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This bar chart compares the prevalence across ages. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Globally 6% of those over 70 years had cancer in 2017. Of the population younger than 50 the prevalence is well under 1% globally.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In all these charts it is possible to switch to any other country: In the US more than 20% of people older than 70 years are living with cancer according to the estimates of the ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Global Burden of Disease", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " shown here. In Spain it is 9%.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-by-age", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "The global disease burden from cancer", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Death rates only capture the mortality of cancer. However, the impact of cancer on people's lives is more than that. Many live with cancer for long periods and it is important to also capture the morbidity caused by cancer.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) is a metric that captures the total burden of disease \u2013 both from years of life lost due to premature death and from years lived with the disease. One DALY equals one lost year of healthy life.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The map shows DALYs from cancers, measured per 100,000 individuals. This is age-standardized to allow comparisons between countries and over time.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": " ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "This is measured across all cancer types. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Also shown are disease burden rates broken down by cancer types. We see that at a global level, the largest burden results from tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer, followed by liver, stomach, colon & rectum, and breast cancer.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Extending the timeline of this chart shows how the disease burden has changed for each type of cancer.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-from-cancers", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-by-cancer-types", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Is the world making progress against cancer?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "About ten million people die from cancer every year. It is the cause of every sixth death.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "It is one of the largest health problems in the world. How is cancer mortality changing over time?\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Three different measures allow us to understand how the mortality of cancer has changed: the number of deaths, the death rate, and the age-standardized death rate. A comparison of how these three measures have changed is shown in the visualization.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Let\u2019s look at what we can learn from each of these.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "The number of cancer deaths increased by 75", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" }, { "text": "%", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "More people than ever before die from cancer \u2013 10.1 million in 2019.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In 1990, 5.8 million people died from cancer. This means we have seen a 75% increase in the global ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "number", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " of cancer deaths.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "The death rate from cancer increased by 21%", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "But in a world with more people, we would expect more people to die. As the world ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth", "children": [ { "text": "population is growing", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " the total number of deaths is rising \u2013 since 1990, the number of deaths increased ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-by-age-group", "children": [ { "text": "from 46 million to 56 million", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " per year.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This of course means that the number of people who ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "did not", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " die of cancer has also increased. To assess whether we are making progress against cancer we cannot rely on the absolute number of deaths alone. It does not account for the increase of the world population.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This is why health statisticians study the number of deaths relative to the size of the population \u2013 the death rate. It is measured as the number of cancer deaths per 100,000 people.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The chart shows that the death rate from cancer has increased by 21% since 1990. This tells us that if the world population had not increased, then instead of the number of cancer deaths increasing by 75% (as we saw above), they would only have increased by 21%.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The difference between the steep rise in the ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "number", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " of deaths and the slower rise of the death ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "rate", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " is due to the increase of the global population.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "children": [ { "text": "The age-standardized death rate from cancer declined by 15%", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-bold" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Cancer kills mostly older people \u2013 as ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age", "children": [ { "text": "the death rate by age", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " shows, of those who are 70 years and older, 1% die from cancer every year. For people who are younger than 50, the cancer death rate is more than 40-times lower (more detail ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-prevalence-by-age", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ").", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "We would therefore expect that many more people die from cancer in an old population than in a young population. Because ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy", "children": [ { "text": "health is improving", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " and ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate", "children": [ { "text": "fertility rates are falling", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ", the world is ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/age-structure", "children": [ { "text": "aging rapidly", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". This impacts the change over time that we are interested in: historically, fewer died from cancer because larger parts of the population died before they reached the age when cancer becomes a common cause of death.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Epidemiologists correct for changes in age-profile over time by relying on the so called \u2018age-standardized death rate\u2019. This metric tells us what the death rate would be if the age structure of the population had stayed the same over time and would be the same across countries.{ref}The IHME Global Burden of Disease (GBD) ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://www.healthdata.org/terms-defined", "children": [ { "text": "define age-standardization", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " as: \u201cA statistical technique used to compare populations with different age structures, in which the characteristics of the populations are statistically transformed to match those of a reference population.\u201d{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Once we correct for both population changes and aging we get the age-standardized death rate from cancer. Globally this has fallen by 15% since 1990.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-rate-and-age-standardized-rate-index", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "The world is making slow progress against cancer", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The comparison of these three metrics shows that the rise in global cancer deaths is driven by two demographic changes: ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#shares-by-world-regions", "children": [ { "text": "population growth", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " and population aging.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Adjusted for demographic changes we find that the age-standardized death rate from cancer has fallen by 15% since 1990.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "If you are interested in a particular country you can explore the IHME estimates for all countries in the world by using the \u201cChange country\u201d option in the chart. Cancer survival rates are ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-by-income", "children": [ { "text": "higher in richer countries", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " and many of these countries have achieved most progress.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "That the world is slowly making progress is also consistent with two other big trends we have studied before.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Almost a quarter of all ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#smoking-and-lung-cancer", "children": [ { "text": "cancer deaths are due to smoking", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". Since smoking rates are ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/smoking#how-has-the-prevalence-of-smoking-changed-over-time", "children": [ { "text": "declining across the world", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " (especially rapidly in rich countries where smoking was very common in the past), we see a strong decline of death rates from lung cancer rates in many countries.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Secondly, as we have ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates", "children": [ { "text": "shown here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ", the 5-year survival rates for cancers are increasing, and the research we covered suggests that this is due to both earlier detection of cancers and better treatment that increased survival.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Given the fact that cancer is one of the world\u2019s largest health problems, a 15% improvement in 29 years does not represent roaring success. But it does show that the world is making slow progress against it.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cancer death rates", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Age-standardized cancer death rates by country", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The age-standardized death rate from all cancer types are shown in this visualization.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The global trend shows what we have seen in the previous section: while the number of cancer deaths is increasing, individual death rates are falling. In 1990, 143 people out of every 100,000 died from cancer globally\u00a0\u2014 by 2017 this had fallen to 121 per 100,000.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "It is possible to switch this chart to the map view. This shows that in 2017, most countries have age-standardized death rates of 50 to 150 deaths per 100,000 individuals. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-per-100000?tab=map", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Age-standardized death rates by type of cancer", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "For the purposes of assessing the total incidence of cancer, in the chart above we grouped all cancer types together to look at overall trends. However, death rates and progress in reducing mortality incidence varies across the many forms of cancer. In the chart we see the individual age-standardized death rates across cancer types. This is again measured as the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "As we would expect from the leading cause of cancer deaths, rates in tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer are highest globally at 24 per 100,000. This has fallen slightly from 26 per 100,000 in the early 1990s, with even greater declines in some countries (in the US, ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-type?country=USA", "children": [ { "text": "rates have fallen", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " from 47 to 34 per 100,000).", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The death rate from stomach cancer has fallen substantially \u2013 from 19 per 100,000 in 1990 to 11 per 100,000 in 2017 \u2013 and contributed to much of the slow global progress against cancer mortality.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In some cases we have seen dramatic declines over the last few decades. For some, such as stomach cancer there has been notable progress\u00a0\u2014 declining from 19 to 11 deaths per 100,000.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-type", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "The number of cancer deaths is increasing as the world population is growing and aging ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The number of cancer deaths has increased from around 5.7 million in 1990 to 8.8 million in 2017 as this chart shows. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "As we just saw, this is happening for two big reasons: The first one is that the world population is increasing and with it the number of annual deaths. In 1990 49 Million people died and since then the number of total deaths has increased by more than 7 Million \u2013 as ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#how-many-people-die-and-how-many-are-born-each-year", "children": [ { "text": "this chart", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " shows.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The second big reason is that the world made rapid progress against causes of death that once killed people early in life \u2013 especially infectious diseases. [See our entry on ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death", "children": [ { "text": "causes of death", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " for more information.] This means that the world population is aging and more people are dying of causes that kill people at an older age, like cancer. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Because ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://owid.cloud/economic-growth", "children": [ { "text": "the world is getting richer", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " and ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://owid.cloud/life-expectancy", "children": [ { "text": "fewer are dying an early death", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " we can expect the number of people dying from cancer to increase further.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-type-grouped", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Smoking and lung cancer", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "The rise and fall of lung cancer", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This chart shows death rates from lung cancer in the US since 1950. It is possible to view the data for other countries by using the tools in the chart.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "We see the same rise, peak, and decline pattern that we have seen in the cigarette consumption statistics.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "These trends are largely driven by the trends in ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://owid.cloud/smoking", "children": [ { "text": "smoking", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ". Smoking is the biggest risk factor for lung cancer and we see that the trends in lung cancer follow those in smoking with a lag.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lung-cancer-deaths-per-100000-by-sex-1950-2002", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Share of cancer deaths attributed to smoking", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The world map shows the Global Burden of Disease estimates of the share of cancer deaths that can be attributed to smoking.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Globally, ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-tobacco?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL", "children": [ { "text": "about a quarter", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " of cancer deaths are attributed to smoking.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In most richer countries, the share is even higher.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In poor countries, where fewer people were smoking in the past, tobacco is responsible for a smaller fraction of cancer deaths.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-tobacco", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cancer over the long run", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cancer deaths in the US since 1930", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This chart provides a long run perspective on cancer death rates, from 1930 in the United States.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In orange we see again the pronounced peaks for lung cancers in men and then later in women.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "For many other forms of cancer the age-standardized death rates show a long-term decline:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "list", "items": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Breast cancer death rates started falling in the early 1990s.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The death rate for prostate increased until the mid 90s and then started to decline sharply.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Colon and rectum cancers declined over the last decades in both men and women.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Pancreas cancer and leukemia increased until the 1970s and then remained at around the same level.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Uterus, liver, and stomach cancers declined continuously over this 80 year period.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-in-the-us", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "What can be done about cancer?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cancer survival rates", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cancer survival rates across the world", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In this charts, we provide the widest coverage across countries of five-year survival rates by cancer type. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This data was published in the The Lancet in 2015 by Allemani et al.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., \u2026 & Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) \u2013 Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995\u20132009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673614620389", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "You can explore the range of countries using the \"Change country\" selection in the interactive chart.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-by-cancer-type", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cancer survival rates across the world by type", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The three maps below show how the five-year survival rates for lung, breast and liver cancer vary across the world. This data is again from Allemani et al. 2015 Lancet paper.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., \u2026 & Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) \u2013 Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995\u20132009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673614620389", "children": [ { "text": "here", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Lung cancer survival rates across the world", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In lung cancer Japan has the highest five-year survival rates at approximately 30 percent.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In contrast to this only 7% of lung cancer patients are alive five years after diagnosis in Chile, Bulgaria and Mongolia.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-from-lung-cancer", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Breast cancer survival rates across the world", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In breast cancer, higher income countries in particular across North America, Europe and Oceania tend to have five-year survival rates over 80 percent in 2009.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This is almost double that of the lowest nation with available data in 2009 \u2013 Jordan \u2013 at only 43 percent. A decade earlier the survival rate in Algeria was as low as 17%.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://owid.cloud/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-from-breast-cancer", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Liver cancer survival rates across the world", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Compared to breast cancer the five year survival rates for liver cancer are much lower around he world.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The lowest survival rate in 2009 was in Romania with just 2.3%. In Japan the chance to survive for five years was more than 10-times higher: 27% in 2009.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://owid.cloud/grapher/five-year-survival-rate-from-liver-cancer", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cancer survival rates by income", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In these two charts we see that the five-year survival rates \u2013 following diagnosis \u2013 are lower in poorer countries.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Especially for breast cancer survival rates are lower in poorer countries. In high income countries survival rates are above 80% while in many poor countries it is well below 80% or even 60%. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The relationship between lung cancer survival rate and average is less strong. There is significant variability in five-year survival rates between countries of a similar income, but the lowest survival rates are again reported from the poorest countries.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/breast-cancer-survival-rates-vs-gdp-per-capita", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lung-cancer-survival-rate-vs-gdp", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Are cancers caused by genetic or external factors?", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Are cancers caused by genetic factors, or determined by external factors such as behavioral, lifestyle and environmental exposure? ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The relative contribution of genetic factors (DNA replication and tissue type) versus external exposure has been a dominant topic within cancer research. The outcomes of such studies are highly important\u00a0\u2014 if genetic factors are found to be dominant then early detection and understanding of the relative vulnerability of different DNA and tissue variations arguably present the best opportunity to reduce cancer burden. In contrast, if external and environmental risk factors dominate, then lifestyle choice which reduces risk exposure is crucial for this reduction.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In a 2015 paper Cristian Tomasetti and Bert Vogelstein, published in\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Science", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ", the authors conclude that only one-third of cancers are attributable to environmental factors or inherited predispositions; the vast majority result from \u201cbad luck\u201d \u2013 random mutations which can occur when DNA replicates in normal non-cancerous cells.{ref}Tomasetti, C., & Vogelstein, B. (2015). Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Science", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ",\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "347", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "(6217), 78-81. Available ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6217/78.full", "children": [ { "text": "online", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This study therefore argued that, beyond some cancer types which are deterministic (D-tumors) and can be reduced through lifestyle factors or ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://owid.cloud/vaccination", "children": [ { "text": "vaccines", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ", the most promising approach to reduction of cancer deaths across most cancers (replicative, R-tumors) is early detection.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "This paper has been highly contested within the scientific literature. A number of later publications in\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Science", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " provided a rebuttal to these conclusions, suggesting analytical flaws in the prior analysis, and epidemiological evidence which suggests otherwise.{ref}Wild, C., Brennan, P., Plummer, M., Bray, F., Straif, K., & Zavadil, J. (2015). Cancer risk: role of chance overstated.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Science", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ",\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "347", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "(6223), 728-728. Available ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/728.1", "children": [ { "text": "online", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Song, M., & Giovannucci, E. L. (2015). Cancer risk: many factors contribute.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Science", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ",\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "347", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "(6223), 728-729. Available ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/728.3", "children": [ { "text": "online", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Ashford, N. A. et al. Cancer risk: role of environment. Science 347, 727 (2015). Available ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/727.1", "children": [ { "text": "online", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Such studies have argue that the role of 'chance' in cancer development was overstated by Tomasetti and Vogelstein, and the role of environmental exposures was understated. Wu et al. (2016) published\u00a0a study in\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Nature", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": " which concluded that intrinsic factors (which relates to the 'bad luck' DNA replication) account for less than 10-30 percent of cancer development, with the majority resulting from extrinsic risk factors.{ref}Wu, S., Powers, S., Zhu, W., & Hannun, Y. A. (2016). Substantial contribution of extrinsic risk factors to cancer development.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "Nature", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ",\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "529", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": "(7584), 43. Available ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16166.pdf", "children": [ { "text": "online", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study attempt\u00a0\u2014 using risk-exposure relationships\u00a0\u2014 to provide attribution of certain risk factors to disease burden and mortality outcomes.{ref}GBD 2016 Risk Factors Collaborators.\u00a0Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990\u20132016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016.\u00a0", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "children": [ { "text": "The Lancet", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-italic" }, { "text": ". 14 Sept 2017: 390;1345-1422. Available ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral", "children": [ { "text": "online", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": ".{/ref} These risk factors include a wide range, including smoking, diet and nutrition, obesity, alcohol intake, air pollution, & environmental exposures to carcinogens.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In the chart we see IHME estimates of the share of global cancer deaths which are attributed to one of these major risk factors. For example, 80 percent of tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer deaths are attributed to risk factors such as smoking and air pollution. The remaining share of deaths we would therefore assume no attribution to risk factors, and would occur naturally in the absence of such risks (i.e. deaths from lung cancer which would result if no one smoked, zero air pollution etc.).{ref}Note that IHME risk factors do not account for sun exposure, which is a ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/sun-uv-and-cancer/how-the-sun-and-uv-cause-cancer", "children": [ { "text": "known risk factor", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " for skin cancer. Attribution for skin cancers in the data are therefore an underestimate.{/ref}", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-risk-factors", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cancer by income, poverty and inequality level of the country", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 2, "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Cancer deaths by income", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Whilst cancer prevalence shows a positive relationship to income, death rates from cancer incorporate several factors: cancer prevalence, detection and treatment. When we compare cancer death rates across income we see no strong relationship between these measures. ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "There is also ", "spanType": "span-simple-text" }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-from-cancers-vs-income-inequality", "children": [ { "text": "no correlation", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "spanType": "span-link" }, { "text": " between the level of income inequality in a country and the cancer death rate.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-from-cancers-vs-average-income", "type": "chart", "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Definition of metrics", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 1, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "horizontal-rule", "parseErrors": [] }, { "text": [ { "text": "Number of deaths, death rates, and age-standardized rates", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "type": "heading", "level": 3, "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "In this entry we define cancer deaths in three fundamental ways:", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "list", "items": [ { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Absolute (total) number of cancer deaths;", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Cancer death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals within a given population;", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "Age-standardized death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals assuming a constant and consistent age-structure of population between countries and across time.", "spanType": "span-simple-text" } ], "parseErrors": [] } ], "parseErrors": [] }, { "type": "text", "value": [ { "text": "These measures vary in the information they provide. 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Are we making progress against cancer?	2019-11-15 13:47:15	2023-05-25 17:45:52	https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Screenshot-2023-01-15-at-20.35.33.png	{}	This article was first published in July 2015; updated in April 2018 with latest cancer data for the year 2017 – and revised substantially in November 2019. In 2017, 9.6 million people are estimated to have died from the various forms of cancer. Every sixth death in the world is due to cancer, making it the second leading cause of death – second only to cardiovascular diseases.{ref}See the relevant data [here](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-deaths-by-cause). This is data from Schutte, A. E. (2017). Global, regional, and national age-sex specific mortality for 264 causes of death, 1980-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Available [online](http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(17)32152-9.pdf).{/ref} Progress against many other causes of deaths and demographic drivers of increasing [population size](https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#shares-by-world-regions), [life expectancy](https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy) and — particularly in higher-income countries — [aging populations](https://owid.cloud/age-structure) mean that the total number of cancer deaths continues to increase. This is a very personal topic to many: nearly everyone knows or has lost someone dear to them from this collection of diseases. Cancers are defined by the [National Cancer Institute](https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/what-is-cancer) as a collection of diseases in which abnormal cells can divide and spread to nearby tissue. Cancers can arise in many parts of the body – leading to a range of cancer types, as shown below – and in some cases spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymph systems. In this entry we provide an overview of all types of cancer. [See all interactive charts on cancer ↓](#all-charts) --- # Cancer is one of the leading causes of death --- ### Almost 10 Million people die from cancer annually Cancer is one of the world's largest health problems. The _Global Burden of Disease_ estimates that 9.56 million people died prematurely as a result of cancer in 2017. [Every sixth death](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-deaths-by-cause) in the world is due to cancer.{ref}The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) put relatively small error margins around this global figure: the lower and upper estimates extend from 9.2 to 9.7 million. Full data on cancer deaths, including upper and lower estimates can be downloaded at the IHME's [Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Results Tool](http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool).{/ref} The _Global Burden of Disease_ is a major global study on the causes and risk factors for death and disease published in the medical journal _The Lancet_.{ref}The latest study can be found at the website of the Lancet here: [TheLancet.com/GBD](https://www.thelancet.com/gbd) The 2017 study was published as GBD 2017 Risk Factor Collaborators – "Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017" and is online [here](http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral-0).{/ref} Cancer is a particularly common cause of death in richer countries where people are less likely do die of infectious diseases and causes of deaths that lead to very early deaths for people in poverty. The chart is shown for the global total, but can be explored for any country or region using the "change country" toggle. Switching to one of the richer countries shows that the share of deaths attributed to cancer is higher. Because cancer is one of the leading causes of death, it is one of the world's most pressing problems to make progress against this disease. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-number-of-deaths-by-cause"/> ## Deaths from cancer In the chart we see the total number of deaths in 2017 attributed to the range of different cancers. The group of tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancers claimed the largest number of lives – 1.9 million in 2017. Next follow colon and rectum, stomach and liver cancer, all claiming between 800,000 and 900,000 globally in 2017. This chart also allows exploring deaths by country (click 'change country' at the bottom of the chart). In exploring patterns across various countries, we see that tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer is the leading form of cancer deaths across most high and middle-income countries. However, the leading form in lower income countries varies: colon and rectum; liver; cervical; stomach; breast and prostrate all top the list in several countries. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-cancer-deaths-by-type"/> ## Cancer deaths by age How are cancer deaths distributed across age groups? And how did this change over time? In the first chart we see the breakdown of total cancer deaths by broad age category, ranging from under-5s to those over 70 years old. Almost half – 46% in 2017 – of all people who die from cancer are 70 or older. Another 41 percent are between 50 and 69 years old – so that 87% of all cancer victims are older than 50 years. The distribution of deaths across the age spectrum has changed notably since 1990. The share of deaths which occur in those aged over 70 has increased by 8 percentage points, whilst the share in those aged 50-69 and 15-49 has fallen. Collectively, children and adolescents under 14 years old account for around one percent of cancer deaths — this equates to around 110,000 children per year. The second chart shows the death rate – the number of cancer deaths of people in a certain age group per 100,000 people of the same age group. Of the people who are 70 years and older more than 1% (i.e. more than 1000 per 100,000) die from cancer each year. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-age?stackMode=relative"/> <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age"/> --- # Cancer prevalence --- What is the prevalence of cancers across the world's population? The charts here provide data on the share of a given population with any form of cancer. This is first shown collectively across all cancer types, followed by breakdown by cancer type. ### The prevalence of cancer around the world The map shows that we tend to see a higher prevalence of cancer in higher-income countries. Prevalence of cancer ranges from approximately 5.5 percent of the population in the US down to around 0.4 percent in the countries shown in light yellow. Globally the share of people with cancer [reached 1.3%](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer?tab=chart&time=1990..2017&country=OWID_WRL) in 2017. ### undefined undefined https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer"/> ### Prevalence of cancer by type When broken down by type of cancer we see that breast cancer is globally the most prevalent form. Following breast cancer are prostrate and colon & rectum cancer. When you change this chart to another country you see that across most countries these are the top three cancer forms. ### undefined undefined https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-type <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-types"/> ## Cancer prevalence by age ### Age breakdown of people with cancer We see that globally the majority of cancers occur in older populations. Approximately 70% of cancer cases occur in those aged over 50. The chart shows that in 2017, 43 percent were aged between 50 and 69 and 27 percent were over 70 years old. Around five percent of global cancers occur in children and adolescents younger than 15. These are predominantly childhood cancers within the group of leukemia. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-age?stackMode=relative"/> ### Prevalence of cancer by age This bar chart compares the prevalence across ages. Globally 6% of those over 70 years had cancer in 2017. Of the population younger than 50 the prevalence is well under 1% globally. In all these charts it is possible to switch to any other country: In the US more than 20% of people older than 70 years are living with cancer according to the estimates of the _Global Burden of Disease_ shown here. In Spain it is 9%. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-by-age"/> ## The global disease burden from cancer Death rates only capture the mortality of cancer. However, the impact of cancer on people's lives is more than that. Many live with cancer for long periods and it is important to also capture the morbidity caused by cancer. The Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) is a metric that captures the total burden of disease – both from years of life lost due to premature death and from years lived with the disease. One DALY equals one lost year of healthy life. The map shows DALYs from cancers, measured per 100,000 individuals. This is age-standardized to allow comparisons between countries and over time._ _This is measured across all cancer types. Also shown are disease burden rates broken down by cancer types. We see that at a global level, the largest burden results from tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer, followed by liver, stomach, colon & rectum, and breast cancer. Extending the timeline of this chart shows how the disease burden has changed for each type of cancer. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-from-cancers"/> <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-by-cancer-types"/> --- # Is the world making progress against cancer? --- About ten million people die from cancer every year. It is the cause of every sixth death. It is one of the largest health problems in the world. How is cancer mortality changing over time? Three different measures allow us to understand how the mortality of cancer has changed: the number of deaths, the death rate, and the age-standardized death rate. A comparison of how these three measures have changed is shown in the visualization. Let’s look at what we can learn from each of these. The number of cancer deaths increased by 75% More people than ever before die from cancer – 10.1 million in 2019. In 1990, 5.8 million people died from cancer. This means we have seen a 75% increase in the global _number_ of cancer deaths. The death rate from cancer increased by 21% But in a world with more people, we would expect more people to die. As the world [population is growing](https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth) the total number of deaths is rising – since 1990, the number of deaths increased [from 46 million to 56 million](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-by-age-group) per year. This of course means that the number of people who _did not_ die of cancer has also increased. To assess whether we are making progress against cancer we cannot rely on the absolute number of deaths alone. It does not account for the increase of the world population. This is why health statisticians study the number of deaths relative to the size of the population – the death rate. It is measured as the number of cancer deaths per 100,000 people. The chart shows that the death rate from cancer has increased by 21% since 1990. This tells us that if the world population had not increased, then instead of the number of cancer deaths increasing by 75% (as we saw above), they would only have increased by 21%. The difference between the steep rise in the _number_ of deaths and the slower rise of the death _rate_ is due to the increase of the global population. The age-standardized death rate from cancer declined by 15% Cancer kills mostly older people – as [the death rate by age](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age) shows, of those who are 70 years and older, 1% die from cancer every year. For people who are younger than 50, the cancer death rate is more than 40-times lower (more detail [here](https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-prevalence-by-age)). We would therefore expect that many more people die from cancer in an old population than in a young population. Because [health is improving](https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy) and [fertility rates are falling](https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate), the world is [aging rapidly](https://ourworldindata.org/age-structure). This impacts the change over time that we are interested in: historically, fewer died from cancer because larger parts of the population died before they reached the age when cancer becomes a common cause of death. Epidemiologists correct for changes in age-profile over time by relying on the so called ‘age-standardized death rate’. This metric tells us what the death rate would be if the age structure of the population had stayed the same over time and would be the same across countries.{ref}The IHME Global Burden of Disease (GBD) [define age-standardization](http://www.healthdata.org/terms-defined) as: “A statistical technique used to compare populations with different age structures, in which the characteristics of the populations are statistically transformed to match those of a reference population.”{/ref} Once we correct for both population changes and aging we get the age-standardized death rate from cancer. Globally this has fallen by 15% since 1990. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-rate-and-age-standardized-rate-index"/> ### The world is making slow progress against cancer The comparison of these three metrics shows that the rise in global cancer deaths is driven by two demographic changes: [population growth](https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#shares-by-world-regions) and population aging. Adjusted for demographic changes we find that the age-standardized death rate from cancer has fallen by 15% since 1990. If you are interested in a particular country you can explore the IHME estimates for all countries in the world by using the “Change country” option in the chart. Cancer survival rates are [higher in richer countries](https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-by-income) and many of these countries have achieved most progress. That the world is slowly making progress is also consistent with two other big trends we have studied before. Almost a quarter of all [cancer deaths are due to smoking](https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#smoking-and-lung-cancer). Since smoking rates are [declining across the world](https://ourworldindata.org/smoking#how-has-the-prevalence-of-smoking-changed-over-time) (especially rapidly in rich countries where smoking was very common in the past), we see a strong decline of death rates from lung cancer rates in many countries. Secondly, as we have [shown here](https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates), the 5-year survival rates for cancers are increasing, and the research we covered suggests that this is due to both earlier detection of cancers and better treatment that increased survival. Given the fact that cancer is one of the world’s largest health problems, a 15% improvement in 29 years does not represent roaring success. But it does show that the world is making slow progress against it. --- # Cancer death rates --- ### Age-standardized cancer death rates by country The age-standardized death rate from all cancer types are shown in this visualization. The global trend shows what we have seen in the previous section: while the number of cancer deaths is increasing, individual death rates are falling. In 1990, 143 people out of every 100,000 died from cancer globally — by 2017 this had fallen to 121 per 100,000. It is possible to switch this chart to the map view. This shows that in 2017, most countries have age-standardized death rates of 50 to 150 deaths per 100,000 individuals. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-per-100000?tab=map"/> ### Age-standardized death rates by type of cancer For the purposes of assessing the total incidence of cancer, in the chart above we grouped all cancer types together to look at overall trends. However, death rates and progress in reducing mortality incidence varies across the many forms of cancer. In the chart we see the individual age-standardized death rates across cancer types. This is again measured as the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals. As we would expect from the leading cause of cancer deaths, rates in tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer are highest globally at 24 per 100,000. This has fallen slightly from 26 per 100,000 in the early 1990s, with even greater declines in some countries (in the US, [rates have fallen](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-type?country=USA) from 47 to 34 per 100,000). The death rate from stomach cancer has fallen substantially – from 19 per 100,000 in 1990 to 11 per 100,000 in 2017 – and contributed to much of the slow global progress against cancer mortality. In some cases we have seen dramatic declines over the last few decades. For some, such as stomach cancer there has been notable progress — declining from 19 to 11 deaths per 100,000. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-type"/> ## The number of cancer deaths is increasing as the world population is growing and aging The number of cancer deaths has increased from around 5.7 million in 1990 to 8.8 million in 2017 as this chart shows. As we just saw, this is happening for two big reasons: The first one is that the world population is increasing and with it the number of annual deaths. In 1990 49 Million people died and since then the number of total deaths has increased by more than 7 Million – as [this chart](https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#how-many-people-die-and-how-many-are-born-each-year) shows. The second big reason is that the world made rapid progress against causes of death that once killed people early in life – especially infectious diseases. [See our entry on [causes of death](https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death) for more information.] This means that the world population is aging and more people are dying of causes that kill people at an older age, like cancer. Because [the world is getting richer](https://owid.cloud/economic-growth) and [fewer are dying an early death](https://owid.cloud/life-expectancy) we can expect the number of people dying from cancer to increase further. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-type-grouped"/> --- # Smoking and lung cancer --- ### The rise and fall of lung cancer This chart shows death rates from lung cancer in the US since 1950. It is possible to view the data for other countries by using the tools in the chart. We see the same rise, peak, and decline pattern that we have seen in the cigarette consumption statistics. These trends are largely driven by the trends in [smoking](https://owid.cloud/smoking). Smoking is the biggest risk factor for lung cancer and we see that the trends in lung cancer follow those in smoking with a lag. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lung-cancer-deaths-per-100000-by-sex-1950-2002"/> ### Share of cancer deaths attributed to smoking The world map shows the Global Burden of Disease estimates of the share of cancer deaths that can be attributed to smoking. Globally, [about a quarter](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-tobacco?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL) of cancer deaths are attributed to smoking. In most richer countries, the share is even higher. In poor countries, where fewer people were smoking in the past, tobacco is responsible for a smaller fraction of cancer deaths. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-tobacco"/> --- # Cancer over the long run --- ### Cancer deaths in the US since 1930 This chart provides a long run perspective on cancer death rates, from 1930 in the United States. In orange we see again the pronounced peaks for lung cancers in men and then later in women. For many other forms of cancer the age-standardized death rates show a long-term decline: * Breast cancer death rates started falling in the early 1990s. * The death rate for prostate increased until the mid 90s and then started to decline sharply. * Colon and rectum cancers declined over the last decades in both men and women. * Pancreas cancer and leukemia increased until the 1970s and then remained at around the same level. * Uterus, liver, and stomach cancers declined continuously over this 80 year period. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-in-the-us"/> --- # What can be done about cancer? --- ## Cancer survival rates ## Cancer survival rates across the world In this charts, we provide the widest coverage across countries of five-year survival rates by cancer type. This data was published in the The Lancet in 2015 by Allemani et al.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., … & Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) – Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995–2009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online [here](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673614620389).{/ref} You can explore the range of countries using the "Change country" selection in the interactive chart. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-by-cancer-type"/> ### Cancer survival rates across the world by type The three maps below show how the five-year survival rates for lung, breast and liver cancer vary across the world. This data is again from Allemani et al. 2015 Lancet paper.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., … & Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) – Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995–2009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online [here](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673614620389).{/ref} ### Lung cancer survival rates across the world In lung cancer Japan has the highest five-year survival rates at approximately 30 percent. In contrast to this only 7% of lung cancer patients are alive five years after diagnosis in Chile, Bulgaria and Mongolia. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-from-lung-cancer"/> ### Breast cancer survival rates across the world In breast cancer, higher income countries in particular across North America, Europe and Oceania tend to have five-year survival rates over 80 percent in 2009. This is almost double that of the lowest nation with available data in 2009 – Jordan – at only 43 percent. A decade earlier the survival rate in Algeria was as low as 17%. <Chart url="https://owid.cloud/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-from-breast-cancer"/> ### Liver cancer survival rates across the world Compared to breast cancer the five year survival rates for liver cancer are much lower around he world. The lowest survival rate in 2009 was in Romania with just 2.3%. In Japan the chance to survive for five years was more than 10-times higher: 27% in 2009. <Chart url="https://owid.cloud/grapher/five-year-survival-rate-from-liver-cancer"/> ### Cancer survival rates by income In these two charts we see that the five-year survival rates – following diagnosis – are lower in poorer countries. Especially for breast cancer survival rates are lower in poorer countries. In high income countries survival rates are above 80% while in many poor countries it is well below 80% or even 60%. The relationship between lung cancer survival rate and average is less strong. There is significant variability in five-year survival rates between countries of a similar income, but the lowest survival rates are again reported from the poorest countries. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/breast-cancer-survival-rates-vs-gdp-per-capita"/> <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lung-cancer-survival-rate-vs-gdp"/> ## Are cancers caused by genetic or external factors? Are cancers caused by genetic factors, or determined by external factors such as behavioral, lifestyle and environmental exposure? The relative contribution of genetic factors (DNA replication and tissue type) versus external exposure has been a dominant topic within cancer research. The outcomes of such studies are highly important — if genetic factors are found to be dominant then early detection and understanding of the relative vulnerability of different DNA and tissue variations arguably present the best opportunity to reduce cancer burden. In contrast, if external and environmental risk factors dominate, then lifestyle choice which reduces risk exposure is crucial for this reduction. In a 2015 paper Cristian Tomasetti and Bert Vogelstein, published in _Science_, the authors conclude that only one-third of cancers are attributable to environmental factors or inherited predispositions; the vast majority result from “bad luck” – random mutations which can occur when DNA replicates in normal non-cancerous cells.{ref}Tomasetti, C., & Vogelstein, B. (2015). Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions. _Science_, _347_(6217), 78-81. Available [online](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6217/78.full).{/ref} This study therefore argued that, beyond some cancer types which are deterministic (D-tumors) and can be reduced through lifestyle factors or [vaccines](https://owid.cloud/vaccination), the most promising approach to reduction of cancer deaths across most cancers (replicative, R-tumors) is early detection. This paper has been highly contested within the scientific literature. A number of later publications in _Science_ provided a rebuttal to these conclusions, suggesting analytical flaws in the prior analysis, and epidemiological evidence which suggests otherwise.{ref}Wild, C., Brennan, P., Plummer, M., Bray, F., Straif, K., & Zavadil, J. (2015). Cancer risk: role of chance overstated. _Science_, _347_(6223), 728-728. Available [online](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/728.1). Song, M., & Giovannucci, E. L. (2015). Cancer risk: many factors contribute. _Science_, _347_(6223), 728-729. Available [online](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/728.3). Ashford, N. A. et al. Cancer risk: role of environment. Science 347, 727 (2015). Available [online](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/727.1).{/ref} Such studies have argue that the role of 'chance' in cancer development was overstated by Tomasetti and Vogelstein, and the role of environmental exposures was understated. Wu et al. (2016) published a study in _Nature_ which concluded that intrinsic factors (which relates to the 'bad luck' DNA replication) account for less than 10-30 percent of cancer development, with the majority resulting from extrinsic risk factors.{ref}Wu, S., Powers, S., Zhu, W., & Hannun, Y. A. (2016). Substantial contribution of extrinsic risk factors to cancer development. _Nature_, _529_(7584), 43. Available [online](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16166.pdf).{/ref} The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study attempt — using risk-exposure relationships — to provide attribution of certain risk factors to disease burden and mortality outcomes.{ref}GBD 2016 Risk Factors Collaborators. Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. _The Lancet_. 14 Sept 2017: 390;1345-1422. Available [online](http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral).{/ref} These risk factors include a wide range, including smoking, diet and nutrition, obesity, alcohol intake, air pollution, & environmental exposures to carcinogens. In the chart we see IHME estimates of the share of global cancer deaths which are attributed to one of these major risk factors. For example, 80 percent of tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer deaths are attributed to risk factors such as smoking and air pollution. The remaining share of deaths we would therefore assume no attribution to risk factors, and would occur naturally in the absence of such risks (i.e. deaths from lung cancer which would result if no one smoked, zero air pollution etc.).{ref}Note that IHME risk factors do not account for sun exposure, which is a [known risk factor](http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/sun-uv-and-cancer/how-the-sun-and-uv-cause-cancer) for skin cancer. Attribution for skin cancers in the data are therefore an underestimate.{/ref} <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-risk-factors"/> ## Cancer by income, poverty and inequality level of the country ### Cancer deaths by income Whilst cancer prevalence shows a positive relationship to income, death rates from cancer incorporate several factors: cancer prevalence, detection and treatment. When we compare cancer death rates across income we see no strong relationship between these measures. There is also [no correlation](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-from-cancers-vs-income-inequality) between the level of income inequality in a country and the cancer death rate. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-from-cancers-vs-average-income"/> --- # Definition of metrics --- ### Number of deaths, death rates, and age-standardized rates In this entry we define cancer deaths in three fundamental ways: * Absolute (total) number of cancer deaths; * Cancer death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals within a given population; * Age-standardized death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals assuming a constant and consistent age-structure of population between countries and across time. These measures vary in the information they provide. Absolute (total) number of cancer deaths & prevalence figures provide an important indication of the total cancer burden within a given country or society. This is an important metric for a number of reasons, including the need for management and provision of adequate health services (which is dependent on the total societal burden, not just the incidence or risk for a given individual). However, total number of cancer deaths fails to correct for population size and age. Cancer deaths can therefore rise as a result of higher cancer prevalence and/or poorer treatment, but also due to an increase in total population or an aging population. Cancer death rates correct for changes in population _size_, age-standardized death rates correct for population _size and age structure_. Age-standardization therefore gives a more indicative measure of the prevalence and incidence of underlying cancer risk factors between countries and with time without the influence of demographic and population structure changes. --- # Data Sources --- ### Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Global Burden of Disease (GBD) * Data: Death rates, absolute number of deaths and DALYS across all cancer types * Geographical coverage:Global, across all regions and countries * Time span:Most metrics available from 1990 onwards * Available at: Online [here](http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool) ### International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)/World Health Organization (WHO) * Data: Cancer incidence and mortality of major types of cancer by sex * Geographical coverage: Approx. 180 countries * Time span: 1950-2002 * Available at: IARC and WHO's [Globocan 2012 website](http://globocan.iarc.fr/Default.aspx), and at [Gapminder.org](http://www.gapminder.org/data/) * _ On Gapminder, search for “cancer” in the search box to find the data files._ ### National Cancer Institute (NCI) Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program * Data: Cancer mortality and incidence for over 30 types of cancers by race/ethnicity, sex and age * Geographical coverage: United States * Time span: 1975-2010 * Available at:[SEER Cancer Statistics Review website](http://seer.cancer.gov/archive/csr/1975_2010/index.html) <AllCharts heading="Interactive charts on cancer"/>	{ "id": 5633, "date": "2015-07-03T12:10:46", "guid": { "rendered": "http://ourworldindata.org/?page_id=5633" }, "link": "https://owid.cloud/cancer", "meta": { "owid_publication_context_meta_field": [], "owid_key_performance_indicators_meta_field": { "raw": "10.1 million people die from cancer every year.\n\n51% are younger than 70 years old.", "rendered": "<p><strong>10.1 million</strong> people die from cancer every year.</p>\n<p>51% are younger than 70 years old.</p>\n" } }, "slug": "cancer", "tags": [], "type": "page", "title": { "rendered": "Cancer" }, "_links": { "self": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages/5633" } ], "about": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/types/page" } ], "author": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/users/2", "embeddable": true } ], "curies": [ { "href": "https://api.w.org/{rel}", "name": "wp", "templated": true } ], "replies": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=5633", "embeddable": true } ], "wp:term": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=5633", "taxonomy": "category", "embeddable": true }, { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=5633", "taxonomy": "post_tag", "embeddable": true } ], "collection": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages" } ], "wp:attachment": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=5633" } ], "version-history": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages/5633/revisions", "count": 30 } ], "wp:featuredmedia": [ { "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/media/55485", "embeddable": true } ], "predecessor-version": [ { "id": 57154, "href": "https://owid.cloud/wp-json/wp/v2/pages/5633/revisions/57154" } ] }, "author": 2, "parent": 0, "status": "publish", "content": { "rendered": "\n<div class=\"blog-info\">This article was first published in July 2015; updated in April 2018 with latest cancer data for the year 2017 \u2013 and revised substantially in November 2019.</div>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2017, 9.6 million people are estimated to have died from the various forms of cancer. Every sixth death in the world is due to cancer, making it the second leading cause of death \u2013 second only to cardiovascular diseases.{ref}See the relevant data <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-deaths-by-cause\">here</a>. This is data from Schutte, A. E. (2017). Global, regional, and national age-sex specific mortality for 264 causes of death, 1980-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Available <a href=\"http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(17)32152-9.pdf\">online</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Progress against many other causes of deaths and demographic drivers of increasing <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#shares-by-world-regions\">population size</a>, <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy\">life expectancy</a> and \u2014 particularly in higher-income countries \u2014 <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/age-structure\">aging populations</a> mean that the total number of cancer deaths continues to increase. This is a very personal topic to many: nearly everyone knows or has lost someone dear to them from this collection of diseases.</p>\n\n\n\t<div class=\"wp-block-owid-summary\">\n\t\t<h2>Summary</h2>\n\t\t\n\n<ul><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-is-one-of-the-leading-causes-of-death\">Cancer is one of the leading causes of death.</a></li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-deaths-by-age\">Almost half \u2013 46% in 2017 \u2013 of all people who die from cancer are 70 or older.</a></li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#the-number-of-cancer-deaths-is-increasing-as-the-world-population-is-growing-and-aging\">As the world population is growing and aging the global number of cancer deaths is increasing.</a></li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#is-the-world-making-progress-against-cancer\">Adjusted for the increase and aging of the world population the rate of cancer deaths has declined slowly \u2013 the same is true for many countries. The world is making very slow progress.</a></li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#smoking-and-lung-cancer\">Lung cancer kills most people and smoking is largely to blame. As the share of smokers is declining the rate of lung cancer deaths is following.</a></li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-over-the-long-run\">Cancer death rates for US over the last century show that we are slowly making progress against a number of different cancers.</a></li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-across-the-world\">Cancer survival rates differ strongly between different countries across the world.</a></li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-by-income\">Cancer survival rates often much lower in poorer countries.</a></li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\n\n\n\t</div>\n\n\n<p>Cancers are defined by the <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/what-is-cancer\" target=\"_blank\">National Cancer Institute</a> as a collection of diseases in which abnormal cells can divide and spread to nearby tissue. Cancers can arise in many parts of the body \u2013 leading to a range of cancer types, as shown below \u2013 and in some cases spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymph systems. In this entry we provide an overview of all types of cancer.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Cancer is one of the leading causes of death</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>Almost 10 Million people die from cancer annually</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Cancer is one of the world’s largest health problems. The <em>Global Burden of Disease</em> estimates that 9.56 million people died prematurely as a result of cancer in 2017. <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-deaths-by-cause\">Every sixth death</a> in the world is due to cancer.{ref}The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) put relatively small error margins around this global figure: the lower and upper estimates extend from 9.2 to 9.7 million. Full data on cancer deaths, including upper and lower estimates can be downloaded at the IHME’s <a href=\"http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool\">Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Results Tool</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <em>Global Burden of Disease</em> is a major global study on the causes and risk factors for death and disease published in the medical journal <em>The Lancet</em>.{ref}The latest study can be found at the website of the Lancet here: <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://www.thelancet.com/gbd\" target=\"_blank\">TheLancet.com/GBD</a> The 2017 study was published as GBD 2017 Risk Factor Collaborators \u2013 “Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017” and is online <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral-0\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cancer is a particularly common cause of death in richer countries where people are less likely do die of infectious diseases and causes of deaths that lead to very early deaths for people in poverty.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The chart is shown for the global total, but can be explored for any country or region using the “change country” toggle. Switching to one of the richer countries shows that the share of deaths attributed to cancer is higher.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because cancer is one of the leading causes of death, it is one of the world’s most pressing problems to make progress against this disease. </p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-number-of-deaths-by-cause\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Deaths from cancer</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In the chart we see the total number of deaths in 2017 attributed to the range of different cancers. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The group of tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancers claimed the largest number of lives \u2013 1.9 million in 2017. Next follow colon and rectum, stomach and liver cancer, all claiming between 800,000 and 900,000 globally in 2017.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This chart also allows exploring deaths by country (click ‘change country’ at the bottom of the chart).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In exploring patterns across various countries, we see that tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer is the leading form of cancer deaths across most high and middle-income countries. However, the leading form in lower income countries varies: colon and rectum; liver; cervical; stomach; breast and prostrate all top the list in several countries.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-cancer-deaths-by-type\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Cancer deaths by age</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>How are cancer deaths distributed across age groups? And how did this change over time?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the first chart we see the breakdown of total cancer deaths by broad age category, ranging from under-5s to those over 70 years old. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Almost half \u2013 46% in 2017 \u2013 of all people who die from cancer are 70 or older. Another 41 percent are between 50 and 69 years old \u2013 so that 87% of all cancer victims are older than 50 years.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The distribution of deaths across the age spectrum has changed notably since 1990. The share of deaths which occur in those aged over 70 has increased by 8 percentage points, whilst the share in those aged 50-69 and 15-49 has fallen.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Collectively, children and adolescents under 14 years old account for around one percent of cancer deaths \u2014 this equates to around 110,000 children per year. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second chart shows the death rate \u2013 the number of cancer deaths of people in a certain age group per 100,000 people of the same age group. Of the people who are 70 years and older more than 1% (i.e. more than 1000 per 100,000) die from cancer each year.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-age?stackMode=relative\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2>Cancer prevalence</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>What is the prevalence of cancers across the world’s population? </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The charts here provide data on the share of a given population with any form of cancer. This is first shown collectively across all cancer types, followed by breakdown by cancer type. </p>\n\n\n\n<h4>The prevalence of cancer around the world</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The map shows that we tend to see a higher prevalence of cancer in higher-income countries. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prevalence of cancer ranges from approximately 5.5 percent of the population in the US down to around 0.4 percent in the countries shown in light yellow.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Globally the share of people with cancer <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer?tab=chart&time=1990..2017&country=OWID_WRL\">reached 1.3%</a> in 2017.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><strong>Related chart \u2013 the <em>number</em> of people with cancer</strong>: <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer\">This map</a> shows the total number of people with cancer across all countries of the world.</p></blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Prevalence of cancer by type</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>When broken down by type of cancer we see that breast cancer is globally the most prevalent form. Following breast cancer are prostrate and colon & rectum cancer. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you change this chart to another country you see that across most countries these are the top three cancer forms.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><strong>Related chart \u2013 the <em>number</em> of people with cancer, by type</strong>: <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-type\">This chart</a> shows the numbers of people with different types of cancer. As we explored above, the prevalence of breast cancer is highest globally; an estimated 17 million had breast cancer in 2017. 10 million had prostate cancer; and 9 million had colon & rectum cancer.</p></blockquote>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-types\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Cancer prevalence by age</h3>\n\n\n\n<h4>Age breakdown of people with cancer</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>We see that globally the majority of cancers occur in older populations. Approximately 70% of cancer cases occur in those aged over 50.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The chart shows that in 2017, 43 percent were aged between 50 and 69 and 27 percent were over 70 years old.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Around five percent of global cancers occur in children and adolescents younger than 15. These are predominantly childhood cancers within the group of leukemia.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-age?stackMode=relative\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Prevalence of cancer by age</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>This bar chart compares the prevalence across ages. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Globally 6% of those over 70 years had cancer in 2017. Of the population younger than 50 the prevalence is well under 1% globally.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In all these charts it is possible to switch to any other country: In the US more than 20% of people older than 70 years are living with cancer according to the estimates of the <em>Global Burden of Disease</em> shown here. In Spain it is 9%.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-by-age\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>The global disease burden from cancer</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Death rates only capture the mortality of cancer. However, the impact of cancer on people’s lives is more than that. Many live with cancer for long periods and it is important to also capture the morbidity caused by cancer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) is a metric that captures the total burden of disease \u2013 both from years of life lost due to premature death and from years lived with the disease. One DALY equals one lost year of healthy life.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The map shows DALYs from cancers, measured per 100,000 individuals. This is age-standardized to allow comparisons between countries and over time.<em> </em>This is measured across all cancer types. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also shown are disease burden rates broken down by cancer types. We see that at a global level, the largest burden results from tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer, followed by liver, stomach, colon & rectum, and breast cancer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Extending the timeline of this chart shows how the disease burden has changed for each type of cancer.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-from-cancers\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-by-cancer-types\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2>Is the world making progress against cancer?</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>About ten million people die from cancer every year. It is the cause of every sixth death.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is one of the largest health problems in the world. How is cancer mortality changing over time? </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Three different measures allow us to understand how the mortality of cancer has changed: the number of deaths, the death rate, and the age-standardized death rate. A comparison of how these three measures have changed is shown in the visualization.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s look at what we can learn from each of these. </p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The number of cancer deaths increased by 75</strong>%</p>\n\n\n\n<p>More people than ever before die from cancer \u2013 10.1 million in 2019.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1990, 5.8 million people died from cancer. This means we have seen a 75% increase in the global <em>number</em> of cancer deaths.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The death rate from cancer increased by 21%</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>But in a world with more people, we would expect more people to die. As the world <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth\">population is growing</a> the total number of deaths is rising \u2013 since 1990, the number of deaths increased <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-by-age-group\">from 46 million to 56 million</a> per year.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This of course means that the number of people who <em>did not</em> die of cancer has also increased. To assess whether we are making progress against cancer we cannot rely on the absolute number of deaths alone. It does not account for the increase of the world population.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is why health statisticians study the number of deaths relative to the size of the population \u2013 the death rate. It is measured as the number of cancer deaths per 100,000 people.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The chart shows that the death rate from cancer has increased by 21% since 1990. This tells us that if the world population had not increased, then instead of the number of cancer deaths increasing by 75% (as we saw above), they would only have increased by 21%.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The difference between the steep rise in the <em>number</em> of deaths and the slower rise of the death <em>rate</em> is due to the increase of the global population.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The age-standardized death rate from cancer declined by 15%</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cancer kills mostly older people \u2013 as <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age\">the death rate by age</a> shows, of those who are 70 years and older, 1% die from cancer every year. For people who are younger than 50, the cancer death rate is more than 40-times lower (more detail <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-prevalence-by-age\">here</a>).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We would therefore expect that many more people die from cancer in an old population than in a young population. Because <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy\">health is improving</a> and <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate\">fertility rates are falling</a>, the world is <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/age-structure\">aging rapidly</a>. This impacts the change over time that we are interested in: historically, fewer died from cancer because larger parts of the population died before they reached the age when cancer becomes a common cause of death.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Epidemiologists correct for changes in age-profile over time by relying on the so called \u2018age-standardized death rate\u2019. This metric tells us what the death rate would be if the age structure of the population had stayed the same over time and would be the same across countries.{ref}The IHME Global Burden of Disease (GBD) <a href=\"http://www.healthdata.org/terms-defined\">define age-standardization</a> as: \u201cA statistical technique used to compare populations with different age structures, in which the characteristics of the populations are statistically transformed to match those of a reference population.\u201d{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once we correct for both population changes and aging we get the age-standardized death rate from cancer. Globally this has fallen by 15% since 1990.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-rate-and-age-standardized-rate-index\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>The world is making slow progress against cancer</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The comparison of these three metrics shows that the rise in global cancer deaths is driven by two demographic changes: <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#shares-by-world-regions\">population growth</a> and population aging.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adjusted for demographic changes we find that the age-standardized death rate from cancer has fallen by 15% since 1990. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you are interested in a particular country you can explore the IHME estimates for all countries in the world by using the \u201cChange country\u201d option in the chart. Cancer survival rates are <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-by-income\">higher in richer countries</a> and many of these countries have achieved most progress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That the world is slowly making progress is also consistent with two other big trends we have studied before. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Almost a quarter of all <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#smoking-and-lung-cancer\">cancer deaths are due to smoking</a>. Since smoking rates are <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/smoking#how-has-the-prevalence-of-smoking-changed-over-time\">declining across the world</a> (especially rapidly in rich countries where smoking was very common in the past), we see a strong decline of death rates from lung cancer rates in many countries. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Secondly, as we have <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates\">shown here</a>, the 5-year survival rates for cancers are increasing, and the research we covered suggests that this is due to both earlier detection of cancers and better treatment that increased survival.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Given the fact that cancer is one of the world\u2019s largest health problems, a 15% improvement in 29 years does not represent roaring success. But it does show that the world is making slow progress against it.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Cancer death rates</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>Age-standardized cancer death rates by country</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The age-standardized death rate from all cancer types are shown in this visualization.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The global trend shows what we have seen in the previous section: while the number of cancer deaths is increasing, individual death rates are falling. In 1990, 143 people out of every 100,000 died from cancer globally \u2014 by 2017 this had fallen to 121 per 100,000.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is possible to switch this chart to the map view. This shows that in 2017, most countries have age-standardized death rates of 50 to 150 deaths per 100,000 individuals. </p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-per-100000?tab=map\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Age-standardized death rates by type of cancer</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>For the purposes of assessing the total incidence of cancer, in the chart above we grouped all cancer types together to look at overall trends. However, death rates and progress in reducing mortality incidence varies across the many forms of cancer. In the chart we see the individual age-standardized death rates across cancer types. This is again measured as the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we would expect from the leading cause of cancer deaths, rates in tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer are highest globally at 24 per 100,000. This has fallen slightly from 26 per 100,000 in the early 1990s, with even greater declines in some countries (in the US, <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-type?country=USA\">rates have fallen</a> from 47 to 34 per 100,000).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The death rate from stomach cancer has fallen substantially \u2013 from 19 per 100,000 in 1990 to 11 per 100,000 in 2017 \u2013 and contributed to much of the slow global progress against cancer mortality.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In some cases we have seen dramatic declines over the last few decades. For some, such as stomach cancer there has been notable progress \u2014 declining from 19 to 11 deaths per 100,000.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-type\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>The number of cancer deaths is increasing as the world population is growing and aging </h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The number of cancer deaths has increased from around 5.7 million in 1990 to 8.8 million in 2017 as this chart shows. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we just saw, this is happening for two big reasons: The first one is that the world population is increasing and with it the number of annual deaths. In 1990 49 Million people died and since then the number of total deaths has increased by more than 7 Million \u2013 as <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#how-many-people-die-and-how-many-are-born-each-year\">this chart</a> shows.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second big reason is that the world made rapid progress against causes of death that once killed people early in life \u2013 especially infectious diseases. [See our entry on <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death\">causes of death</a> for more information.] This means that the world population is aging and more people are dying of causes that kill people at an older age, like cancer. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/economic-growth\">the world is getting richer</a> and <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/life-expectancy\">fewer are dying an early death</a> we can expect the number of people dying from cancer to increase further.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-type-grouped\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2>Smoking and lung cancer</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>The rise and fall of lung cancer</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>This chart shows death rates from lung cancer in the US since 1950. It is possible to view the data for other countries by using the tools in the chart.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We see the same rise, peak, and decline pattern that we have seen in the cigarette consumption statistics.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These trends are largely driven by the trends in <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/smoking\">smoking</a>. Smoking is the biggest risk factor for lung cancer and we see that the trends in lung cancer follow those in smoking with a lag.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lung-cancer-deaths-per-100000-by-sex-1950-2002\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Share of cancer deaths attributed to smoking</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The world map shows the Global Burden of Disease estimates of the share of cancer deaths that can be attributed to smoking.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Globally, <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-tobacco?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL\">about a quarter</a> of cancer deaths are attributed to smoking.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In most richer countries, the share is even higher.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In poor countries, where fewer people were smoking in the past, tobacco is responsible for a smaller fraction of cancer deaths.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-tobacco\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2>Cancer over the long run</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>Cancer deaths in the US since 1930</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>This chart provides a long run perspective on cancer death rates, from 1930 in the United States.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In orange we see again the pronounced peaks for lung cancers in men and then later in women.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For many other forms of cancer the age-standardized death rates show a long-term decline:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Breast cancer death rates started falling in the early 1990s.</li><li>The death rate for prostate increased until the mid 90s and then started to decline sharply.</li><li>Colon and rectum cancers declined over the last decades in both men and women.</li><li>Pancreas cancer and leukemia increased until the 1970s and then remained at around the same level.</li><li>Uterus, liver, and stomach cancers declined continuously over this 80 year period.</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-in-the-us\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2>What can be done about cancer?</h2>\n\n\n\n<h3>Cancer survival rates</h3>\n\n\n\n<h3>Cancer survival rates across the world</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In this charts, we provide the widest coverage across countries of five-year survival rates by cancer type. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>This data was published in the The Lancet in 2015 by Allemani et al.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., \u2026 & Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) \u2013 Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995\u20132009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online <a href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673614620389\">here</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can explore the range of countries using the “Change country” selection in the interactive chart.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-by-cancer-type\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Cancer survival rates across the world by type</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The three maps below show how the five-year survival rates for lung, breast and liver cancer vary across the world. This data is again from Allemani et al. 2015 Lancet paper.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., \u2026 & Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) \u2013 Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995\u20132009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online <a href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673614620389\">here</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Lung cancer survival rates across the world</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>In lung cancer Japan has the highest five-year survival rates at approximately 30 percent.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In contrast to this only 7% of lung cancer patients are alive five years after diagnosis in Chile, Bulgaria and Mongolia.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-from-lung-cancer\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Breast cancer survival rates across the world</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>In breast cancer, higher income countries in particular across North America, Europe and Oceania tend to have five-year survival rates over 80 percent in 2009.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is almost double that of the lowest nation with available data in 2009 \u2013 Jordan \u2013 at only 43 percent. A decade earlier the survival rate in Algeria was as low as 17%.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-from-breast-cancer\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Liver cancer survival rates across the world</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Compared to breast cancer the five year survival rates for liver cancer are much lower around he world.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The lowest survival rate in 2009 was in Romania with just 2.3%. In Japan the chance to survive for five years was more than 10-times higher: 27% in 2009.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/grapher/five-year-survival-rate-from-liver-cancer\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Cancer survival rates by income</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>In these two charts we see that the five-year survival rates \u2013 following diagnosis \u2013 are lower in poorer countries.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Especially for breast cancer survival rates are lower in poorer countries. In high income countries survival rates are above 80% while in many poor countries it is well below 80% or even 60%. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The relationship between lung cancer survival rate and average is less strong. There is significant variability in five-year survival rates between countries of a similar income, but the lowest survival rates are again reported from the poorest countries.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/breast-cancer-survival-rates-vs-gdp-per-capita\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lung-cancer-survival-rate-vs-gdp\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Are cancers caused by genetic or external factors?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Are cancers caused by genetic factors, or determined by external factors such as behavioral, lifestyle and environmental exposure? </p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">The relative contribution of genetic factors (DNA replication and tissue type) versus external exposure has been a dominant topic within cancer research. The outcomes of such studies are highly important \u2014 if genetic factors are found to be dominant then early detection and understanding of the relative vulnerability of different DNA and tissue variations arguably present the best opportunity to reduce cancer burden. In contrast, if external and environmental risk factors dominate, then lifestyle choice which reduces risk exposure is crucial for this reduction.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a 2015 paper Cristian Tomasetti and Bert Vogelstein, published in <em>Science</em>, the authors conclude that only one-third of cancers are attributable to environmental factors or inherited predispositions; the vast majority result from \u201cbad luck\u201d \u2013 random mutations which can occur when DNA replicates in normal non-cancerous cells.{ref}Tomasetti, C., & Vogelstein, B. (2015). Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions. <em>Science</em>, <em>347</em>(6217), 78-81. Available <a href=\"http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6217/78.full\">online</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This study therefore argued that, beyond some cancer types which are deterministic (D-tumors) and can be reduced through lifestyle factors or <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/vaccination\">vaccines</a>, the most promising approach to reduction of cancer deaths across most cancers (replicative, R-tumors) is early detection.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This paper has been highly contested within the scientific literature. A number of later publications in <em>Science</em> provided a rebuttal to these conclusions, suggesting analytical flaws in the prior analysis, and epidemiological evidence which suggests otherwise.{ref}Wild, C., Brennan, P., Plummer, M., Bray, F., Straif, K., & Zavadil, J. (2015). Cancer risk: role of chance overstated. <em>Science</em>, <em>347</em>(6223), 728-728. Available <a href=\"http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/728.1\">online</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Song, M., & Giovannucci, E. L. (2015). Cancer risk: many factors contribute. <em>Science</em>, <em>347</em>(6223), 728-729. Available <a href=\"http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/728.3\">online</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ashford, N. A. et al. Cancer risk: role of environment. Science 347, 727 (2015). Available <a href=\"http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/727.1\">online</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such studies have argue that the role of ‘chance’ in cancer development was overstated by Tomasetti and Vogelstein, and the role of environmental exposures was understated. Wu et al. (2016) published a study in <em>Nature</em> which concluded that intrinsic factors (which relates to the ‘bad luck’ DNA replication) account for less than 10-30 percent of cancer development, with the majority resulting from extrinsic risk factors.{ref}Wu, S., Powers, S., Zhu, W., & Hannun, Y. A. (2016). Substantial contribution of extrinsic risk factors to cancer development. <em>Nature</em>, <em>529</em>(7584), 43. Available <a href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16166.pdf\">online</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study attempt \u2014 using risk-exposure relationships \u2014 to provide attribution of certain risk factors to disease burden and mortality outcomes.{ref}GBD 2016 Risk Factors Collaborators. Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990\u20132016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. <em>The Lancet</em>. 14 Sept 2017: 390;1345-1422. Available <a href=\"http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral\">online</a>.{/ref} These risk factors include a wide range, including smoking, diet and nutrition, obesity, alcohol intake, air pollution, & environmental exposures to carcinogens.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the chart we see IHME estimates of the share of global cancer deaths which are attributed to one of these major risk factors. For example, 80 percent of tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer deaths are attributed to risk factors such as smoking and air pollution. The remaining share of deaths we would therefore assume no attribution to risk factors, and would occur naturally in the absence of such risks (i.e. deaths from lung cancer which would result if no one smoked, zero air pollution etc.).{ref}Note that IHME risk factors do not account for sun exposure, which is a <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/sun-uv-and-cancer/how-the-sun-and-uv-cause-cancer\" target=\"_blank\">known risk factor</a> for skin cancer. Attribution for skin cancers in the data are therefore an underestimate.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-risk-factors\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Cancer by income, poverty and inequality level of the country</h3>\n\n\n\n<h4>Cancer deaths by income</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Whilst cancer prevalence shows a positive relationship to income, death rates from cancer incorporate several factors: cancer prevalence, detection and treatment. When we compare cancer death rates across income we see no strong relationship between these measures. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is also <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-from-cancers-vs-income-inequality\">no correlation</a> between the level of income inequality in a country and the cancer death rate.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-from-cancers-vs-average-income\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2>Definition of metrics</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>Number of deaths, death rates, and age-standardized rates</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>In this entry we define cancer deaths in three fundamental ways:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Absolute (total) number of cancer deaths;</li><li>Cancer death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals within a given population;</li><li>Age-standardized death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals assuming a constant and consistent age-structure of population between countries and across time.</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p>These measures vary in the information they provide. Absolute (total) number of cancer deaths & prevalence figures provide an important indication of the total cancer burden within a given country or society. This is an important metric for a number of reasons, including the need for management and provision of adequate health services (which is dependent on the total societal burden, not just the incidence or risk for a given individual).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, total number of cancer deaths fails to correct for population size and age. Cancer deaths can therefore rise as a result of higher cancer prevalence and/or poorer treatment, but also due to an increase in total population or an aging population. Cancer death rates correct for changes in population <em>size</em>, age-standardized death rates correct for population <em>size and age structure</em>. Age-standardization therefore gives a more indicative measure of the prevalence and incidence of underlying cancer risk factors between countries and with time without the influence of demographic and population structure changes.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Data Sources</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Global Burden of Disease (GBD)</h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Data:</strong> Death rates, absolute number of deaths and DALYS across all cancer types</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong>Global, across all regions and countries</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong>Most metrics available from 1990 onwards</li><li><strong>Available at: </strong>Online <a href=\"http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool\">here</a></li></ul>\n\n\n\n<h4>International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)/World Health Organization (WHO)</h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Data:</strong> Cancer incidence and mortality of major types of cancer by sex</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong> Approx. 180 countries</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong> 1950-2002</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> IARC and WHO’s <a href=\"http://globocan.iarc.fr/Default.aspx\">Globocan 2012 website</a>, and at <a href=\"http://www.gapminder.org/data/\">Gapminder.org</a></li><li class=\"no-bullet\"><em> On Gapminder, search for \u201ccancer\u201d in the search box to find the data files.</em></li></ul>\n\n\n\n<h4>National Cancer Institute (NCI) Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program</h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Data:</strong> Cancer mortality and incidence for over 30 types of cancers by race/ethnicity, sex and age</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong> United States</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong> 1975-2010</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> <a href=\"http://seer.cancer.gov/archive/csr/1975_2010/index.html\">SEER Cancer Statistics Review website</a></li></ul>\n", "protected": false }, "excerpt": { "rendered": "Cancers are one of the leading causes of death globally. Are we making progress against cancer?", "protected": false }, "date_gmt": "2015-07-03T12:10:46", "modified": "2023-05-25T18:45:52", "template": "", "categories": [ 46, 233 ], "menu_order": 236, "ping_status": "open", "authors_name": [ "Max Roser", "Hannah Ritchie" ], "modified_gmt": "2023-05-25T17:45:52", "comment_status": "open", "featured_media": 55485, "featured_media_paths": { "thumbnail": "/app/uploads/2023/01/Screenshot-2023-01-15-at-20.35.33-150x83.png", "medium_large": "/app/uploads/2023/01/Screenshot-2023-01-15-at-20.35.33-768x424.png" } }

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Cancer

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<div class="blog-info">This article was first published in July 2015; updated in April 2018 with latest cancer data for the year 2017 – and revised substantially in November 2019.</div>   <p>In 2017, 9.6 million people are estimated to have died from the various forms of cancer. Every sixth death in the world is due to cancer, making it the second leading cause of death – second only to cardiovascular diseases.{ref}See the relevant data <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-deaths-by-cause">here</a>. This is data from Schutte, A. E. (2017). Global, regional, and national age-sex specific mortality for 264 causes of death, 1980-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Available <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(17)32152-9.pdf">online</a>.{/ref}</p>   <p>Progress against many other causes of deaths and demographic drivers of increasing <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#shares-by-world-regions">population size</a>, <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy">life expectancy</a> and — particularly in higher-income countries — <a href="https://owid.cloud/age-structure">aging populations</a> mean that the total number of cancer deaths continues to increase. This is a very personal topic to many: nearly everyone knows or has lost someone dear to them from this collection of diseases.</p>    <ul><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-is-one-of-the-leading-causes-of-death">Cancer is one of the leading causes of death.</a></li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-deaths-by-age">Almost half – 46% in 2017 – of all people who die from cancer are 70 or older.</a></li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#the-number-of-cancer-deaths-is-increasing-as-the-world-population-is-growing-and-aging">As the world population is growing and aging the global number of cancer deaths is increasing.</a></li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#is-the-world-making-progress-against-cancer">Adjusted for the increase and aging of the world population the rate of cancer deaths has declined slowly – the same is true for many countries. The world is making very slow progress.</a></li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#smoking-and-lung-cancer">Lung cancer kills most people and smoking is largely to blame. As the share of smokers is declining the rate of lung cancer deaths is following.</a></li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-over-the-long-run">Cancer death rates for US over the last century show that we are slowly making progress against a number of different cancers.</a></li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-across-the-world">Cancer survival rates differ strongly between different countries across the world.</a></li><li><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-by-income">Cancer survival rates often much lower in poorer countries.</a></li></ul>   <p></p>    <p>Cancers are defined by the <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/what-is-cancer" target="_blank">National Cancer Institute</a> as a collection of diseases in which abnormal cells can divide and spread to nearby tissue. Cancers can arise in many parts of the body – leading to a range of cancer types, as shown below – and in some cases spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymph systems. In this entry we provide an overview of all types of cancer.</p>   <h2>Cancer is one of the leading causes of death</h2>   <h4>Almost 10 Million people die from cancer annually</h4>   <p>Cancer is one of the world's largest health problems. The <em>Global Burden of Disease</em> estimates that 9.56 million people died prematurely as a result of cancer in 2017. <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-deaths-by-cause">Every sixth death</a> in the world is due to cancer.{ref}The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) put relatively small error margins around this global figure: the lower and upper estimates extend from 9.2 to 9.7 million. Full data on cancer deaths, including upper and lower estimates can be downloaded at the IHME's <a href="http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool">Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Results Tool</a>.{/ref}</p>   <p>The <em>Global Burden of Disease</em> is a major global study on the causes and risk factors for death and disease published in the medical journal <em>The Lancet</em>.{ref}The latest study can be found at the website of the Lancet here: <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.thelancet.com/gbd" target="_blank">TheLancet.com/GBD</a> The 2017 study was published as GBD 2017 Risk Factor Collaborators – "Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017" and is online <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral-0" target="_blank">here</a>.{/ref}</p>   <p>Cancer is a particularly common cause of death in richer countries where people are less likely do die of infectious diseases and causes of deaths that lead to very early deaths for people in poverty.</p>   <p>The chart is shown for the global total, but can be explored for any country or region using the "change country" toggle. Switching to one of the richer countries shows that the share of deaths attributed to cancer is higher.</p>   <p>Because cancer is one of the leading causes of death, it is one of the world's most pressing problems to make progress against this disease. </p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-number-of-deaths-by-cause"></iframe>   <h3>Deaths from cancer</h3>   <p>In the chart we see the total number of deaths in 2017 attributed to the range of different cancers. </p>   <p>The group of tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancers claimed the largest number of lives – 1.9 million in 2017. Next follow colon and rectum, stomach and liver cancer, all claiming between 800,000 and 900,000 globally in 2017.</p>   <p>This chart also allows exploring deaths by country (click 'change country' at the bottom of the chart).</p>   <p>In exploring patterns across various countries, we see that tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer is the leading form of cancer deaths across most high and middle-income countries. However, the leading form in lower income countries varies: colon and rectum; liver; cervical; stomach; breast and prostrate all top the list in several countries.</p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-cancer-deaths-by-type"></iframe>   <h3>Cancer deaths by age</h3>   <p>How are cancer deaths distributed across age groups? And how did this change over time?</p>   <p>In the first chart we see the breakdown of total cancer deaths by broad age category, ranging from under-5s to those over 70 years old. </p>   <p>Almost half – 46% in 2017 – of all people who die from cancer are 70 or older. Another 41 percent are between 50 and 69 years old – so that 87% of all cancer victims are older than 50 years.</p>   <p>The distribution of deaths across the age spectrum has changed notably since 1990. The share of deaths which occur in those aged over 70 has increased by 8 percentage points, whilst the share in those aged 50-69 and 15-49 has fallen.</p>   <p>Collectively, children and adolescents under 14 years old account for around one percent of cancer deaths — this equates to around 110,000 children per year. </p>   <p>The second chart shows the death rate – the number of cancer deaths of people in a certain age group per 100,000 people of the same age group. Of the people who are 70 years and older more than 1% (i.e. more than 1000 per 100,000) die from cancer each year.</p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-age?stackMode=relative"></iframe>   <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe>   <h2>Cancer prevalence</h2>   <p>What is the prevalence of cancers across the world's population? </p>   <p>The charts here provide data on the share of a given population with any form of cancer. This is first shown collectively across all cancer types, followed by breakdown by cancer type. </p>   <h4>The prevalence of cancer around the world</h4>   <p>The map shows that we tend to see a higher prevalence of cancer in higher-income countries. </p>   <p>Prevalence of cancer ranges from approximately 5.5 percent of the population in the US down to around 0.4 percent in the countries shown in light yellow.</p>   <p>Globally the share of people with cancer <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer?tab=chart&time=1990..2017&country=OWID_WRL">reached 1.3%</a> in 2017.</p>   <blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p><strong>Related chart – the <em>number</em> of people with cancer</strong>: <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer">This map</a> shows the total number of people with cancer across all countries of the world.</p></blockquote>   <p></p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer" width="300" height="150"></iframe>   <h4>Prevalence of cancer by type</h4>   <p>When broken down by type of cancer we see that breast cancer is globally the most prevalent form. Following breast cancer are prostrate and colon & rectum cancer. </p>   <p>When you change this chart to another country you see that across most countries these are the top three cancer forms.</p>   <blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p><strong>Related chart – the <em>number</em> of people with cancer, by type</strong>: <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-type">This chart</a> shows the numbers of people with different types of cancer. As we explored above, the prevalence of breast cancer is highest globally; an estimated 17 million had breast cancer in 2017. 10 million had prostate cancer; and 9 million had colon & rectum cancer.</p></blockquote>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-types" width="300" height="150"></iframe>   <h3>Cancer prevalence by age</h3>   <h4>Age breakdown of people with cancer</h4>   <p>We see that globally the majority of cancers occur in older populations. Approximately 70% of cancer cases occur in those aged over 50.</p>   <p>The chart shows that in 2017, 43 percent were aged between 50 and 69 and 27 percent were over 70 years old.</p>   <p>Around five percent of global cancers occur in children and adolescents younger than 15. These are predominantly childhood cancers within the group of leukemia.</p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-age?stackMode=relative" width="300" height="150"></iframe>   <h4>Prevalence of cancer by age</h4>   <p>This bar chart compares the prevalence across ages. </p>   <p>Globally 6% of those over 70 years had cancer in 2017. Of the population younger than 50 the prevalence is well under 1% globally.</p>   <p>In all these charts it is possible to switch to any other country: In the US more than 20% of people older than 70 years are living with cancer according to the estimates of the <em>Global Burden of Disease</em> shown here. In Spain it is 9%.</p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-by-age" width="300" height="150"></iframe>   <h3>The global disease burden from cancer</h3>   <p>Death rates only capture the mortality of cancer. However, the impact of cancer on people's lives is more than that. Many live with cancer for long periods and it is important to also capture the morbidity caused by cancer.</p>   <p>The Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) is a metric that captures the total burden of disease – both from years of life lost due to premature death and from years lived with the disease. One DALY equals one lost year of healthy life.</p>   <p>The map shows DALYs from cancers, measured per 100,000 individuals. This is age-standardized to allow comparisons between countries and over time.<em> </em>This is measured across all cancer types. </p>   <p>Also shown are disease burden rates broken down by cancer types. We see that at a global level, the largest burden results from tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer, followed by liver, stomach, colon & rectum, and breast cancer.</p>   <p>Extending the timeline of this chart shows how the disease burden has changed for each type of cancer.</p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-from-cancers"></iframe>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-by-cancer-types"></iframe>   <h2>Is the world making progress against cancer?</h2>    <p>About ten million people die from cancer every year. It is the cause of every sixth death.</p>   <p>It is one of the largest health problems in the world. How is cancer mortality changing over time? </p>   <p>Three different measures allow us to understand how the mortality of cancer has changed: the number of deaths, the death rate, and the age-standardized death rate. A comparison of how these three measures have changed is shown in the visualization.</p>   <p>Let’s look at what we can learn from each of these. </p>   <p><strong>The number of cancer deaths increased by 75</strong>%</p>   <p>More people than ever before die from cancer – 10.1 million in 2019.</p>   <p>In 1990, 5.8 million people died from cancer. This means we have seen a 75% increase in the global <em>number</em> of cancer deaths.</p>   <p><strong>The death rate from cancer increased by 21%</strong></p>   <p>But in a world with more people, we would expect more people to die. As the world <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth">population is growing</a> the total number of deaths is rising – since 1990, the number of deaths increased <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-by-age-group">from 46 million to 56 million</a> per year.</p>   <p>This of course means that the number of people who <em>did not</em> die of cancer has also increased. To assess whether we are making progress against cancer we cannot rely on the absolute number of deaths alone. It does not account for the increase of the world population.</p>   <p>This is why health statisticians study the number of deaths relative to the size of the population – the death rate. It is measured as the number of cancer deaths per 100,000 people.</p>   <p>The chart shows that the death rate from cancer has increased by 21% since 1990. This tells us that if the world population had not increased, then instead of the number of cancer deaths increasing by 75% (as we saw above), they would only have increased by 21%.</p>   <p>The difference between the steep rise in the <em>number</em> of deaths and the slower rise of the death <em>rate</em> is due to the increase of the global population.</p>   <p><strong>The age-standardized death rate from cancer declined by 15%</strong></p>   <p>Cancer kills mostly older people – as <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age">the death rate by age</a> shows, of those who are 70 years and older, 1% die from cancer every year. For people who are younger than 50, the cancer death rate is more than 40-times lower (more detail <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-prevalence-by-age">here</a>).</p>   <p>We would therefore expect that many more people die from cancer in an old population than in a young population. Because <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy">health is improving</a> and <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate">fertility rates are falling</a>, the world is <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/age-structure">aging rapidly</a>. This impacts the change over time that we are interested in: historically, fewer died from cancer because larger parts of the population died before they reached the age when cancer becomes a common cause of death.</p>   <p>Epidemiologists correct for changes in age-profile over time by relying on the so called ‘age-standardized death rate’. This metric tells us what the death rate would be if the age structure of the population had stayed the same over time and would be the same across countries.{ref}The IHME Global Burden of Disease (GBD) <a href="http://www.healthdata.org/terms-defined">define age-standardization</a> as: “A statistical technique used to compare populations with different age structures, in which the characteristics of the populations are statistically transformed to match those of a reference population.”{/ref}</p>   <p>Once we correct for both population changes and aging we get the age-standardized death rate from cancer. Globally this has fallen by 15% since 1990.</p>   <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-rate-and-age-standardized-rate-index" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe>   <h4>The world is making slow progress against cancer</h4>   <p>The comparison of these three metrics shows that the rise in global cancer deaths is driven by two demographic changes: <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#shares-by-world-regions">population growth</a> and population aging.</p>   <p>Adjusted for demographic changes we find that the age-standardized death rate from cancer has fallen by 15% since 1990. </p>   <p>If you are interested in a particular country you can explore the IHME estimates for all countries in the world by using the “Change country” option in the chart. Cancer survival rates are <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-by-income">higher in richer countries</a> and many of these countries have achieved most progress.</p>   <p>That the world is slowly making progress is also consistent with two other big trends we have studied before. </p>   <p>Almost a quarter of all <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#smoking-and-lung-cancer">cancer deaths are due to smoking</a>. Since smoking rates are <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/smoking#how-has-the-prevalence-of-smoking-changed-over-time">declining across the world</a> (especially rapidly in rich countries where smoking was very common in the past), we see a strong decline of death rates from lung cancer rates in many countries. </p>   <p>Secondly, as we have <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates">shown here</a>, the 5-year survival rates for cancers are increasing, and the research we covered suggests that this is due to both earlier detection of cancers and better treatment that increased survival.</p>   <p>Given the fact that cancer is one of the world’s largest health problems, a 15% improvement in 29 years does not represent roaring success. But it does show that the world is making slow progress against it.</p>   <h2>Cancer death rates</h2>   <h4>Age-standardized cancer death rates by country</h4>   <p>The age-standardized death rate from all cancer types are shown in this visualization.</p>   <p>The global trend shows what we have seen in the previous section: while the number of cancer deaths is increasing, individual death rates are falling. In 1990, 143 people out of every 100,000 died from cancer globally — by 2017 this had fallen to 121 per 100,000.</p>   <p>It is possible to switch this chart to the map view. This shows that in 2017, most countries have age-standardized death rates of 50 to 150 deaths per 100,000 individuals. </p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-per-100000?tab=map"></iframe>   <h4>Age-standardized death rates by type of cancer</h4>   <p>For the purposes of assessing the total incidence of cancer, in the chart above we grouped all cancer types together to look at overall trends. However, death rates and progress in reducing mortality incidence varies across the many forms of cancer. In the chart we see the individual age-standardized death rates across cancer types. This is again measured as the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals.</p>   <p>As we would expect from the leading cause of cancer deaths, rates in tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer are highest globally at 24 per 100,000. This has fallen slightly from 26 per 100,000 in the early 1990s, with even greater declines in some countries (in the US, <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-type?country=USA">rates have fallen</a> from 47 to 34 per 100,000).</p>   <p>The death rate from stomach cancer has fallen substantially – from 19 per 100,000 in 1990 to 11 per 100,000 in 2017 – and contributed to much of the slow global progress against cancer mortality.</p>   <p>In some cases we have seen dramatic declines over the last few decades. For some, such as stomach cancer there has been notable progress — declining from 19 to 11 deaths per 100,000.</p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-type"></iframe>   <h3>The number of cancer deaths is increasing as the world population is growing and aging </h3>   <p>The number of cancer deaths has increased from around 5.7 million in 1990 to 8.8 million in 2017 as this chart shows. </p>   <p>As we just saw, this is happening for two big reasons: The first one is that the world population is increasing and with it the number of annual deaths. In 1990 49 Million people died and since then the number of total deaths has increased by more than 7 Million – as <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#how-many-people-die-and-how-many-are-born-each-year">this chart</a> shows.</p>   <p>The second big reason is that the world made rapid progress against causes of death that once killed people early in life – especially infectious diseases. [See our entry on <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death">causes of death</a> for more information.] This means that the world population is aging and more people are dying of causes that kill people at an older age, like cancer. </p>   <p>Because <a href="https://owid.cloud/economic-growth">the world is getting richer</a> and <a href="https://owid.cloud/life-expectancy">fewer are dying an early death</a> we can expect the number of people dying from cancer to increase further.</p>   <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-type-grouped" width="300" height="150"></iframe>   <h2>Smoking and lung cancer</h2>    <h4>The rise and fall of lung cancer</h4>   <p>This chart shows death rates from lung cancer in the US since 1950. It is possible to view the data for other countries by using the tools in the chart.</p>   <p>We see the same rise, peak, and decline pattern that we have seen in the cigarette consumption statistics.</p>   <p>These trends are largely driven by the trends in <a href="https://owid.cloud/smoking">smoking</a>. Smoking is the biggest risk factor for lung cancer and we see that the trends in lung cancer follow those in smoking with a lag.</p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lung-cancer-deaths-per-100000-by-sex-1950-2002"></iframe>   <h4>Share of cancer deaths attributed to smoking</h4>   <p>The world map shows the Global Burden of Disease estimates of the share of cancer deaths that can be attributed to smoking.</p>   <p>Globally, <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-tobacco?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL">about a quarter</a> of cancer deaths are attributed to smoking.</p>   <p>In most richer countries, the share is even higher.</p>   <p>In poor countries, where fewer people were smoking in the past, tobacco is responsible for a smaller fraction of cancer deaths.</p>   <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-tobacco" style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;"></iframe>   <h2>Cancer over the long run</h2>   <h4>Cancer deaths in the US since 1930</h4>   <p>This chart provides a long run perspective on cancer death rates, from 1930 in the United States.</p>   <p>In orange we see again the pronounced peaks for lung cancers in men and then later in women.</p>   <p>For many other forms of cancer the age-standardized death rates show a long-term decline:</p>   <ul><li>Breast cancer death rates started falling in the early 1990s.</li><li>The death rate for prostate increased until the mid 90s and then started to decline sharply.</li><li>Colon and rectum cancers declined over the last decades in both men and women.</li><li>Pancreas cancer and leukemia increased until the 1970s and then remained at around the same level.</li><li>Uterus, liver, and stomach cancers declined continuously over this 80 year period.</li></ul>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-in-the-us"></iframe>   <h2>What can be done about cancer?</h2>   <h3>Cancer survival rates</h3>   <h3>Cancer survival rates across the world</h3>   <p>In this charts, we provide the widest coverage across countries of five-year survival rates by cancer type. </p>   <p>This data was published in the The Lancet in 2015 by Allemani et al.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., … & Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) – Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995–2009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673614620389">here</a>.{/ref}</p>   <p>You can explore the range of countries using the "Change country" selection in the interactive chart.</p>   <iframe src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-by-cancer-type"></iframe>   <h4>Cancer survival rates across the world by type</h4>   <p>The three maps below show how the five-year survival rates for lung, breast and liver cancer vary across the world. This data is again from Allemani et al. 2015 Lancet paper.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., … & Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) – Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995–2009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673614620389">here</a>.{/ref}</p>   <h4>Lung cancer survival rates across the world</h4>   <p>In lung cancer Japan has the highest five-year survival rates at approximately 30 percent.</p>   <p>In contrast to this only 7% of lung cancer patients are alive five years after diagnosis in Chile, Bulgaria and Mongolia.</p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-from-lung-cancer"></iframe>   <h4>Breast cancer survival rates across the world</h4>   <p>In breast cancer, higher income countries in particular across North America, Europe and Oceania tend to have five-year survival rates over 80 percent in 2009.</p>   <p>This is almost double that of the lowest nation with available data in 2009 – Jordan – at only 43 percent. A decade earlier the survival rate in Algeria was as low as 17%.</p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://owid.cloud/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-from-breast-cancer" width="300" height="150"></iframe>   <h4>Liver cancer survival rates across the world</h4>   <p>Compared to breast cancer the five year survival rates for liver cancer are much lower around he world.</p>   <p>The lowest survival rate in 2009 was in Romania with just 2.3%. In Japan the chance to survive for five years was more than 10-times higher: 27% in 2009.</p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://owid.cloud/grapher/five-year-survival-rate-from-liver-cancer" width="300" height="150"></iframe>   <h4>Cancer survival rates by income</h4>   <p>In these two charts we see that the five-year survival rates – following diagnosis – are lower in poorer countries.</p>   <p>Especially for breast cancer survival rates are lower in poorer countries. In high income countries survival rates are above 80% while in many poor countries it is well below 80% or even 60%. </p>   <p>The relationship between lung cancer survival rate and average is less strong. There is significant variability in five-year survival rates between countries of a similar income, but the lowest survival rates are again reported from the poorest countries.</p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/breast-cancer-survival-rates-vs-gdp-per-capita" width="300" height="150"></iframe>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lung-cancer-survival-rate-vs-gdp" width="300" height="150"></iframe>   <h3>Are cancers caused by genetic or external factors?</h3>   <p>Are cancers caused by genetic factors, or determined by external factors such as behavioral, lifestyle and environmental exposure? </p>   <p class="has-text-align-left">The relative contribution of genetic factors (DNA replication and tissue type) versus external exposure has been a dominant topic within cancer research. The outcomes of such studies are highly important — if genetic factors are found to be dominant then early detection and understanding of the relative vulnerability of different DNA and tissue variations arguably present the best opportunity to reduce cancer burden. In contrast, if external and environmental risk factors dominate, then lifestyle choice which reduces risk exposure is crucial for this reduction.</p>   <p>In a 2015 paper Cristian Tomasetti and Bert Vogelstein, published in <em>Science</em>, the authors conclude that only one-third of cancers are attributable to environmental factors or inherited predispositions; the vast majority result from “bad luck” – random mutations which can occur when DNA replicates in normal non-cancerous cells.{ref}Tomasetti, C., & Vogelstein, B. (2015). Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions. <em>Science</em>, <em>347</em>(6217), 78-81. Available <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6217/78.full">online</a>.{/ref}</p>   <p>This study therefore argued that, beyond some cancer types which are deterministic (D-tumors) and can be reduced through lifestyle factors or <a href="https://owid.cloud/vaccination">vaccines</a>, the most promising approach to reduction of cancer deaths across most cancers (replicative, R-tumors) is early detection.</p>   <p>This paper has been highly contested within the scientific literature. A number of later publications in <em>Science</em> provided a rebuttal to these conclusions, suggesting analytical flaws in the prior analysis, and epidemiological evidence which suggests otherwise.{ref}Wild, C., Brennan, P., Plummer, M., Bray, F., Straif, K., & Zavadil, J. (2015). Cancer risk: role of chance overstated. <em>Science</em>, <em>347</em>(6223), 728-728. Available <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/728.1">online</a>.</p>   <p>Song, M., & Giovannucci, E. L. (2015). Cancer risk: many factors contribute. <em>Science</em>, <em>347</em>(6223), 728-729. Available <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/728.3">online</a>.</p>   <p>Ashford, N. A. et al. Cancer risk: role of environment. Science 347, 727 (2015). Available <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/727.1">online</a>.{/ref}</p>   <p>Such studies have argue that the role of 'chance' in cancer development was overstated by Tomasetti and Vogelstein, and the role of environmental exposures was understated. Wu et al. (2016) published a study in <em>Nature</em> which concluded that intrinsic factors (which relates to the 'bad luck' DNA replication) account for less than 10-30 percent of cancer development, with the majority resulting from extrinsic risk factors.{ref}Wu, S., Powers, S., Zhu, W., & Hannun, Y. A. (2016). Substantial contribution of extrinsic risk factors to cancer development. <em>Nature</em>, <em>529</em>(7584), 43. Available <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16166.pdf">online</a>.{/ref}</p>   <p>The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study attempt — using risk-exposure relationships — to provide attribution of certain risk factors to disease burden and mortality outcomes.{ref}GBD 2016 Risk Factors Collaborators. Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. <em>The Lancet</em>. 14 Sept 2017: 390;1345-1422. Available <a href="http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral">online</a>.{/ref} These risk factors include a wide range, including smoking, diet and nutrition, obesity, alcohol intake, air pollution, & environmental exposures to carcinogens.</p>   <p>In the chart we see IHME estimates of the share of global cancer deaths which are attributed to one of these major risk factors. For example, 80 percent of tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer deaths are attributed to risk factors such as smoking and air pollution. The remaining share of deaths we would therefore assume no attribution to risk factors, and would occur naturally in the absence of such risks (i.e. deaths from lung cancer which would result if no one smoked, zero air pollution etc.).{ref}Note that IHME risk factors do not account for sun exposure, which is a <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/sun-uv-and-cancer/how-the-sun-and-uv-cause-cancer" target="_blank">known risk factor</a> for skin cancer. Attribution for skin cancers in the data are therefore an underestimate.{/ref}</p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-risk-factors" width="300" height="150"></iframe>   <h3>Cancer by income, poverty and inequality level of the country</h3>   <h4>Cancer deaths by income</h4>   <p>Whilst cancer prevalence shows a positive relationship to income, death rates from cancer incorporate several factors: cancer prevalence, detection and treatment. When we compare cancer death rates across income we see no strong relationship between these measures. </p>   <p>There is also <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-from-cancers-vs-income-inequality">no correlation</a> between the level of income inequality in a country and the cancer death rate.</p>   <iframe style="width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;" src="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-from-cancers-vs-average-income" width="300" height="150"></iframe>   <h2>Definition of metrics</h2>   <h4>Number of deaths, death rates, and age-standardized rates</h4>   <p>In this entry we define cancer deaths in three fundamental ways:</p>   <ul><li>Absolute (total) number of cancer deaths;</li><li>Cancer death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals within a given population;</li><li>Age-standardized death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals assuming a constant and consistent age-structure of population between countries and across time.</li></ul>   <p>These measures vary in the information they provide. Absolute (total) number of cancer deaths & prevalence figures provide an important indication of the total cancer burden within a given country or society. This is an important metric for a number of reasons, including the need for management and provision of adequate health services (which is dependent on the total societal burden, not just the incidence or risk for a given individual).</p>   <p>However, total number of cancer deaths fails to correct for population size and age. Cancer deaths can therefore rise as a result of higher cancer prevalence and/or poorer treatment, but also due to an increase in total population or an aging population. Cancer death rates correct for changes in population <em>size</em>, age-standardized death rates correct for population <em>size and age structure</em>. Age-standardization therefore gives a more indicative measure of the prevalence and incidence of underlying cancer risk factors between countries and with time without the influence of demographic and population structure changes.</p>   <h2>Data Sources</h2>   <h4>Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Global Burden of Disease (GBD)</h4>   <ul><li><strong>Data:</strong> Death rates, absolute number of deaths and DALYS across all cancer types</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong>Global, across all regions and countries</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong>Most metrics available from 1990 onwards</li><li><strong>Available at: </strong>Online <a href="http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool">here</a></li></ul>   <h4>International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)/World Health Organization (WHO)</h4>   <ul><li><strong>Data:</strong> Cancer incidence and mortality of major types of cancer by sex</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong> Approx. 180 countries</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong> 1950-2002</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> IARC and WHO's <a href="http://globocan.iarc.fr/Default.aspx">Globocan 2012 website</a>, and at <a href="http://www.gapminder.org/data/">Gapminder.org</a></li><li class="no-bullet"><em> On Gapminder, search for “cancer” in the search box to find the data files.</em></li></ul>   <h4>National Cancer Institute (NCI) Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program</h4>   <ul><li><strong>Data:</strong> Cancer mortality and incidence for over 30 types of cancers by race/ethnicity, sex and age</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong> United States</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong> 1975-2010</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> <a href="http://seer.cancer.gov/archive/csr/1975_2010/index.html">SEER Cancer Statistics Review website</a></li></ul>

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                        "text": "In 2017, 9.6 million people are estimated to have died from the various forms of cancer. Every sixth death in the world is due to cancer, making it the second leading cause of death \u2013 second only to\u00a0cardiovascular diseases.{ref}See the relevant data ",
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                        "text": " mean that the total number of cancer deaths continues to increase. This is a very personal topic to many: nearly everyone knows or has lost someone dear to them from this collection of diseases.",
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                        "text": " as a collection of diseases in which abnormal cells can divide and spread to nearby tissue. Cancers can arise in many parts of the body \u2013 leading to a range of cancer types, as shown below \u2013 and in some cases spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymph systems. In this entry we provide an overview of all types of cancer.",
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                        "children": [
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                                "url": "#all-charts",
                                "children": [
                                    {
                                        "text": "See all interactive charts on cancer \u2193",
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                                    }
                                ],
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                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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            {
                "text": [
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                        "text": "Cancer is one of the leading causes of death",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Almost 10 Million people die from cancer annually",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "Cancer is one of the world's largest health problems. The ",
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                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Global Burden of Disease",
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                    {
                        "text": " estimates that 9.56 million people died prematurely as a result of cancer in 2017. ",
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                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-deaths-by-cause",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Every sixth death",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " in the world is due to cancer.{ref}The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) put relatively small error margins around this global figure: the lower and upper estimates extend from 9.2 to 9.7 million. Full data on cancer deaths, including upper and lower estimates can be downloaded at the IHME's ",
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                    },
                    {
                        "url": "http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Results Tool",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ".{/ref}",
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                    }
                ],
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The ",
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                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Global Burden of Disease",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                    {
                        "text": " is a major global study on the causes and risk factors for death and disease published in the medical journal ",
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                    },
                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "The Lancet",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-italic"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": ".{ref}The latest study can be found at the website of the Lancet here: ",
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                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://www.thelancet.com/gbd",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "TheLancet.com/GBD",
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                            }
                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " The 2017 study was published as GBD 2017 Risk Factor Collaborators \u2013 \"Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017\" and is online ",
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                        "url": "http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral-0",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "here",
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                            }
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                    {
                        "text": ".{/ref}",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "Cancer is a particularly common cause of death in richer countries where people are less likely do die of infectious diseases and causes of deaths that lead to very early deaths for people in poverty.",
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                ],
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The chart is shown for the global total, but can be explored for any country or region using the \"change country\" toggle. Switching to one of the richer countries shows that the share of deaths attributed to cancer is higher.",
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                    }
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Because cancer is one of the leading causes of death, it is one of the world's most pressing problems to make progress against this disease. ",
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                ],
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            },
            {
                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-number-of-deaths-by-cause",
                "type": "chart",
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Deaths from cancer",
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                ],
                "type": "heading",
                "level": 2,
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "In the chart we see the total number of deaths in 2017 attributed to the range of different cancers. ",
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                ],
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The group of tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancers claimed the largest number of lives \u2013 1.9 million in 2017. Next follow colon and rectum, stomach and liver cancer, all claiming between 800,000 and 900,000 globally in 2017.",
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                ],
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            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "This chart also allows exploring deaths by country (click 'change country' at the bottom of the chart).",
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                ],
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
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                        "text": "In exploring patterns across various countries, we see that tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer is the leading form of cancer deaths across most high and middle-income countries. However, the leading form in lower income countries varies: colon and rectum; liver; cervical; stomach; breast and prostrate all top the list in several countries.",
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                ],
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-cancer-deaths-by-type",
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                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Cancer deaths by age",
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                "type": "heading",
                "level": 2,
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            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "How are cancer deaths distributed across age groups? And how did this change over time?",
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                ],
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "In the first chart we see the breakdown of total cancer deaths by broad age category, ranging from under-5s to those over 70 years old. ",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
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                        "text": "Almost half \u2013 46% in 2017 \u2013 of all people who die from cancer are 70 or older. Another 41 percent are between 50 and 69 years old \u2013 so that 87% of all cancer victims are older than 50 years.",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "The distribution of deaths across the age spectrum has changed notably since 1990. The share of deaths which occur in those aged over 70 has increased by 8 percentage points, whilst the share in those aged 50-69 and 15-49 has fallen.",
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Collectively, children and adolescents under 14 years old account for around one percent of cancer deaths\u00a0\u2014 this equates to around 110,000 children per year.\u00a0",
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                ],
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "The second chart shows the death rate \u2013 the number of cancer deaths of people in a certain age group per 100,000 people of the same age group. Of the people who are 70 years and older more than 1% (i.e. more than 1000 per 100,000) die from cancer each year.",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-age?stackMode=relative",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age",
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                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Cancer prevalence",
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                "type": "heading",
                "level": 1,
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                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "What is the prevalence of cancers across the world's population? ",
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                        "text": "The charts here provide data on the share of a given population with any form of cancer. This is first shown collectively across all cancer types, followed by breakdown by cancer type. ",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "The prevalence of cancer around the world",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "The map shows that we tend to see a higher prevalence of cancer in higher-income countries. ",
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Prevalence of cancer ranges from approximately 5.5 percent of the population in the US down to around 0.4 percent in the countries shown in light yellow.",
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                        "text": "Globally the share of people with cancer ",
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                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer?tab=chart&time=1990..2017&country=OWID_WRL",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "reached 1.3%",
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                        "text": " in 2017.",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer",
                "type": "prominent-link",
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            {
                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer",
                "type": "chart",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Prevalence of cancer by type",
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "When broken down by type of cancer we see that breast cancer is globally the most prevalent form. Following breast cancer are prostrate and colon & rectum cancer. ",
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                ],
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "When you change this chart to another country you see that across most countries these are the top three cancer forms.",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-type",
                "type": "prominent-link",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-types",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Cancer prevalence by age",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Age breakdown of people with cancer",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "We see that globally the majority of cancers occur in older populations. Approximately 70% of cancer cases occur in those aged over 50.",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "The chart shows that in 2017, 43 percent were aged between 50 and 69 and 27 percent were over 70 years old.",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "Around five percent of global cancers occur in children and adolescents younger than 15. These are predominantly childhood cancers within the group of leukemia.",
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            {
                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-age?stackMode=relative",
                "type": "chart",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Prevalence of cancer by age",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "This bar chart compares the prevalence across ages. ",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "Globally 6% of those over 70 years had cancer in 2017. Of the population younger than 50 the prevalence is well under 1% globally.",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "In all these charts it is possible to switch to any other country: In the US more than 20% of people older than 70 years are living with cancer according to the estimates of the ",
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                    {
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "Global Burden of Disease",
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                    {
                        "text": " shown here. In Spain it is 9%.",
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            {
                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-by-age",
                "type": "chart",
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "The global disease burden from cancer",
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                "type": "heading",
                "level": 2,
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Death rates only capture the mortality of cancer. However, the impact of cancer on people's lives is more than that. Many live with cancer for long periods and it is important to also capture the morbidity caused by cancer.",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) is a metric that captures the total burden of disease \u2013 both from years of life lost due to premature death and from years lived with the disease. One DALY equals one lost year of healthy life.",
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "The map shows DALYs from cancers, measured per 100,000 individuals. This is age-standardized to allow comparisons between countries and over time.",
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                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": " ",
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                    {
                        "text": "This is measured across all cancer types. ",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Also shown are disease burden rates broken down by cancer types. We see that at a global level, the largest burden results from tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer, followed by liver, stomach, colon & rectum, and breast cancer.",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "Extending the timeline of this chart shows how the disease burden has changed for each type of cancer.",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-from-cancers",
                "type": "chart",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-by-cancer-types",
                "type": "chart",
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            {
                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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            {
                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Is the world making progress against cancer?",
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                "type": "heading",
                "level": 1,
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                "type": "horizontal-rule",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "About ten million people die from cancer every year. It is the cause of every sixth death.",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "It is one of the largest health problems in the world. How is cancer mortality changing over time?\u00a0",
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                ],
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "Three different measures allow us to understand how the mortality of cancer has changed: the number of deaths, the death rate, and the age-standardized death rate. A comparison of how these three measures have changed is shown in the visualization.",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
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                        "text": "Let\u2019s look at what we can learn from each of these.\u00a0",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "The number of cancer deaths increased by 75",
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                    {
                        "text": "%",
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            {
                "type": "text",
                "value": [
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                        "text": "More people than ever before die from cancer \u2013 10.1 million in 2019.",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "In 1990, 5.8 million people died from cancer. This means we have seen a 75% increase in the global ",
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                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "number",
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                    {
                        "text": " of cancer deaths.",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "The death rate from cancer increased by 21%",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "But in a world with more people, we would expect more people to die. As the world ",
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                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth",
                        "children": [
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                                "text": "population is growing",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " the total number of deaths is rising \u2013 since 1990, the number of deaths increased ",
                        "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-by-age-group",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "from 46 million to 56 million",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
                    },
                    {
                        "text": " per year.",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
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                        "text": "This of course means that the number of people who ",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "did not",
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                        "spanType": "span-italic"
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                    {
                        "text": " die of cancer has also increased. To assess whether we are making progress against cancer we cannot rely on the absolute number of deaths alone. It does not account for the increase of the world population.",
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                ],
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                "type": "text",
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                        "text": "This is why health statisticians study the number of deaths relative to the size of the population \u2013 the death rate. It is measured as the number of cancer deaths per 100,000 people.",
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                        "text": "The chart shows that the death rate from cancer has increased by 21% since 1990. This tells us that if the world population had not increased, then instead of the number of cancer deaths increasing by 75% (as we saw above), they would only have increased by 21%.",
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                        "text": "The difference between the steep rise in the ",
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                                "text": "number",
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                        "text": " of deaths and the slower rise of the death ",
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                        "text": " is due to the increase of the global population.",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "The age-standardized death rate from cancer declined by 15%",
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                        "text": "Cancer kills mostly older people \u2013 as ",
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                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age",
                        "children": [
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                                "text": "the death rate by age",
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                        "text": " shows, of those who are 70 years and older, 1% die from cancer every year. For people who are younger than 50, the cancer death rate is more than 40-times lower (more detail ",
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                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "here",
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                    {
                        "text": ").",
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                        "text": "We would therefore expect that many more people die from cancer in an old population than in a young population. Because ",
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                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy",
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                                "text": "health is improving",
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                        "text": " and ",
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                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate",
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                                "text": "fertility rates are falling",
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                        "text": ", the world is ",
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                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/age-structure",
                        "children": [
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                                "text": "aging rapidly",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                        "spanType": "span-link"
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                    {
                        "text": ". This impacts the change over time that we are interested in: historically, fewer died from cancer because larger parts of the population died before they reached the age when cancer becomes a common cause of death.",
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                        "text": "Epidemiologists correct for changes in age-profile over time by relying on the so called \u2018age-standardized death rate\u2019. This metric tells us what the death rate would be if the age structure of the population had stayed the same over time and would be the same across countries.{ref}The IHME Global Burden of Disease (GBD) ",
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                    {
                        "url": "http://www.healthdata.org/terms-defined",
                        "children": [
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                                "text": "define age-standardization",
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                        ],
                        "spanType": "span-link"
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                    {
                        "text": " as: \u201cA statistical technique used to compare populations with different age structures, in which the characteristics of the populations are statistically transformed to match those of a reference population.\u201d{/ref}",
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                        "text": "Once we correct for both population changes and aging we get the age-standardized death rate from cancer. Globally this has fallen by 15% since 1990.",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-rate-and-age-standardized-rate-index",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "The world is making slow progress against cancer",
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                        "text": "The comparison of these three metrics shows that the rise in global cancer deaths is driven by two demographic changes: ",
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                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#shares-by-world-regions",
                        "children": [
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                                "text": "population growth",
                                "spanType": "span-simple-text"
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                        "text": " and population aging.",
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                        "text": "Adjusted for demographic changes we find that the age-standardized death rate from cancer has fallen by 15% since 1990.\u00a0",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "If you are interested in a particular country you can explore the IHME estimates for all countries in the world by using the \u201cChange country\u201d option in the chart. Cancer survival rates are ",
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                    },
                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-by-income",
                        "children": [
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                                "text": "higher in richer countries",
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                    {
                        "text": " and many of these countries have achieved most progress.",
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                        "text": "That the world is slowly making progress is also consistent with two other big trends we have studied before.\u00a0",
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                        "text": "Almost a quarter of all ",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "cancer deaths are due to smoking",
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                        "spanType": "span-link"
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                    {
                        "text": ". Since smoking rates are ",
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                    {
                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/smoking#how-has-the-prevalence-of-smoking-changed-over-time",
                        "children": [
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                                "text": "declining across the world",
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                    {
                        "text": " (especially rapidly in rich countries where smoking was very common in the past), we see a strong decline of death rates from lung cancer rates in many countries.\u00a0",
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                        "text": "Secondly, as we have ",
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                        "children": [
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                                "text": "shown here",
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                        ],
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                    {
                        "text": ", the 5-year survival rates for cancers are increasing, and the research we covered suggests that this is due to both earlier detection of cancers and better treatment that increased survival.",
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                        "text": "Given the fact that cancer is one of the world\u2019s largest health problems, a 15% improvement in 29 years does not represent roaring success. But it does show that the world is making slow progress against it.",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Cancer death rates",
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                        "text": "Age-standardized cancer death rates by country",
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                        "text": "The age-standardized death rate from all cancer types are shown in this visualization.",
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                        "text": "The global trend shows what we have seen in the previous section: while the number of cancer deaths is increasing, individual death rates are falling. In 1990, 143 people out of every 100,000 died from cancer globally\u00a0\u2014 by 2017 this had fallen to 121 per 100,000.",
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                        "text": "It is possible to switch this chart to the map view. This shows that in 2017, most countries have age-standardized death rates of 50 to 150 deaths per 100,000 individuals. ",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Age-standardized death rates by type of cancer",
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                        "text": "For the purposes of assessing the total incidence of cancer, in the chart above we grouped all cancer types together to look at overall trends. However, death rates and progress in reducing mortality incidence varies across the many forms of cancer. In the chart we see the individual age-standardized death rates across cancer types. This is again measured as the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals.",
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                        "text": "As we would expect from the leading cause of cancer deaths, rates in tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer are highest globally at 24 per 100,000. This has fallen slightly from 26 per 100,000 in the early 1990s, with even greater declines in some countries (in the US, ",
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                                "text": "rates have fallen",
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                    {
                        "text": " from 47 to 34 per 100,000).",
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                        "text": "The death rate from stomach cancer has fallen substantially \u2013 from 19 per 100,000 in 1990 to 11 per 100,000 in 2017 \u2013 and contributed to much of the slow global progress against cancer mortality.",
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                        "text": "In some cases we have seen dramatic declines over the last few decades. For some, such as stomach cancer there has been notable progress\u00a0\u2014 declining from 19 to 11 deaths per 100,000.",
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                        "text": "The number of cancer deaths is increasing as the world population is growing and aging ",
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                        "text": "The number of cancer deaths has increased from around 5.7 million in 1990 to 8.8 million in 2017 as this chart shows. ",
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                        "text": "As we just saw, this is happening for two big reasons: The first one is that the world population is increasing and with it the number of annual deaths. In 1990 49 Million people died and since then the number of total deaths has increased by more than 7 Million \u2013 as ",
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                                "text": "this chart",
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                        "text": " shows.",
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                        "text": "The second big reason is that the world made rapid progress against causes of death that once killed people early in life \u2013 especially infectious diseases. [See our entry on ",
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                        "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death",
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                                "text": "causes of death",
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                        "spanType": "span-link"
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                    {
                        "text": " for more information.] This means that the world population is aging and more people are dying of causes that kill people at an older age, like cancer. ",
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                        "text": "Because ",
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                                "text": "the world is getting richer",
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                        "text": " and ",
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                                "text": "fewer are dying an early death",
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                        "text": " we can expect the number of people dying from cancer to increase further.",
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                        "text": "This chart shows death rates from lung cancer in the US since 1950. It is possible to view the data for other countries by using the tools in the chart.",
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                        "text": "We see the same rise, peak, and decline pattern that we have seen in the cigarette consumption statistics.",
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                        "text": "These trends are largely driven by the trends in ",
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                        "text": ". Smoking is the biggest risk factor for lung cancer and we see that the trends in lung cancer follow those in smoking with a lag.",
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                        "text": "Share of cancer deaths attributed to smoking",
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                        "text": "The world map shows the Global Burden of Disease estimates of the share of cancer deaths that can be attributed to smoking.",
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                        "text": "Globally, ",
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                                "text": "about a quarter",
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                        "text": " of cancer deaths are attributed to smoking.",
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                        "text": "In most richer countries, the share is even higher.",
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                        "text": "In poor countries, where fewer people were smoking in the past, tobacco is responsible for a smaller fraction of cancer deaths.",
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                        "text": "Cancer over the long run",
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                        "text": "This chart provides a long run perspective on cancer death rates, from 1930 in the United States.",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "In orange we see again the pronounced peaks for lung cancers in men and then later in women.",
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                        "text": "For many other forms of cancer the age-standardized death rates show a long-term decline:",
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                                "text": "Breast cancer death rates started falling in the early 1990s.",
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                                "text": "The death rate for prostate increased until the mid 90s and then started to decline sharply.",
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                                "text": "Colon and rectum cancers declined over the last decades in both men and women.",
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                                "text": "Pancreas cancer and leukemia increased until the 1970s and then remained at around the same level.",
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                                "text": "Uterus, liver, and stomach cancers declined continuously over this 80 year period.",
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                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "What can be done about cancer?",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Cancer survival rates",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Cancer survival rates across the world",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "In this charts, we provide the widest coverage across countries of five-year survival rates by cancer type. ",
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                        "text": "This data was published in the The Lancet in 2015 by Allemani et al.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., \u2026 & Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) \u2013 Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995\u20132009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online ",
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                                "text": "here",
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                        "text": ".{/ref}",
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                        "text": "You can explore the range of countries using the \"Change country\" selection in the interactive chart.",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-by-cancer-type",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Cancer survival rates across the world by type",
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                        "text": "The three maps below show how the five-year survival rates for lung, breast and liver cancer vary across the world. This data is again from Allemani et al. 2015 Lancet paper.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., \u2026 & Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) \u2013 Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995\u20132009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online ",
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                        "text": ".{/ref}",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Lung cancer survival rates across the world",
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                        "text": "In lung cancer Japan has the highest five-year survival rates at approximately 30 percent.",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "In contrast to this only 7% of lung cancer patients are alive five years after diagnosis in Chile, Bulgaria and Mongolia.",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-from-lung-cancer",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Breast cancer survival rates across the world",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "In breast cancer, higher income countries in particular across North America, Europe and Oceania tend to have five-year survival rates over 80 percent in 2009.",
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                        "text": "This is almost double that of the lowest nation with available data in 2009 \u2013 Jordan \u2013 at only 43 percent. A decade earlier the survival rate in Algeria was as low as 17%.",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Liver cancer survival rates across the world",
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                        "text": "Compared to breast cancer the five year survival rates for liver cancer are much lower around he world.",
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                        "text": "The lowest survival rate in 2009 was in Romania with just 2.3%. In Japan the chance to survive for five years was more than 10-times higher: 27% in 2009.",
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                "url": "https://owid.cloud/grapher/five-year-survival-rate-from-liver-cancer",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Cancer survival rates by income",
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                        "text": "In these two charts we see that the five-year survival rates \u2013 following diagnosis \u2013 are lower in poorer countries.",
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                "value": [
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                        "text": "Especially for breast cancer survival rates are lower in poorer countries. In high income countries survival rates are above 80% while in many poor countries it is well below 80% or even 60%. ",
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                        "text": "The relationship between lung cancer survival rate and average is less strong. There is significant variability in five-year survival rates between countries of a similar income, but the lowest survival rates are again reported from the poorest countries.",
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                "text": [
                    {
                        "text": "Are cancers caused by genetic or external factors?",
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                        "text": "Are cancers caused by genetic factors, or determined by external factors such as behavioral, lifestyle and environmental exposure? ",
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                        "text": "The relative contribution of genetic factors (DNA replication and tissue type) versus external exposure has been a dominant topic within cancer research. The outcomes of such studies are highly important\u00a0\u2014 if genetic factors are found to be dominant then early detection and understanding of the relative vulnerability of different DNA and tissue variations arguably present the best opportunity to reduce cancer burden. In contrast, if external and environmental risk factors dominate, then lifestyle choice which reduces risk exposure is crucial for this reduction.",
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                        "text": "In a 2015 paper Cristian Tomasetti and Bert Vogelstein, published in\u00a0",
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                                "text": "Science",
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                        "text": ", the authors conclude that only one-third of cancers are attributable to environmental factors or inherited predispositions; the vast majority result from \u201cbad luck\u201d \u2013 random mutations which can occur when DNA replicates in normal non-cancerous cells.{ref}Tomasetti, C., & Vogelstein, B. (2015). Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions.\u00a0",
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                                "text": "347",
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                        "text": "(6217), 78-81. Available ",
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                        "text": "This study therefore argued that, beyond some cancer types which are deterministic (D-tumors) and can be reduced through lifestyle factors or ",
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                        "url": "https://owid.cloud/vaccination",
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                                "text": "vaccines",
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                        "text": ", the most promising approach to reduction of cancer deaths across most cancers (replicative, R-tumors) is early detection.",
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                        "text": "This paper has been highly contested within the scientific literature. A number of later publications in\u00a0",
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                        "text": " provided a rebuttal to these conclusions, suggesting analytical flaws in the prior analysis, and epidemiological evidence which suggests otherwise.{ref}Wild, C., Brennan, P., Plummer, M., Bray, F., Straif, K., & Zavadil, J. (2015). Cancer risk: role of chance overstated.\u00a0",
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                        "text": "(6223), 728-728. Available ",
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                                "text": "online",
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                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Song, M., & Giovannucci, E. L. (2015). Cancer risk: many factors contribute.\u00a0",
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                                "text": "Science",
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                        "text": "(6223), 728-729. Available ",
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                "type": "text",
                "value": [
                    {
                        "text": "Ashford, N. A. et al. Cancer risk: role of environment. Science 347, 727 (2015). Available ",
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                        "url": "http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/727.1",
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                        "text": ".{/ref}",
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                        "text": "Such studies have argue that the role of 'chance' in cancer development was overstated by Tomasetti and Vogelstein, and the role of environmental exposures was understated. Wu et al. (2016) published\u00a0a study in\u00a0",
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                                "text": "Nature",
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                        "text": " which concluded that intrinsic factors (which relates to the 'bad luck' DNA replication) account for less than 10-30 percent of cancer development, with the majority resulting from extrinsic risk factors.{ref}Wu, S., Powers, S., Zhu, W., & Hannun, Y. A. (2016). Substantial contribution of extrinsic risk factors to cancer development.\u00a0",
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                                "text": "Nature",
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                        "text": ",\u00a0",
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                                "text": "529",
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                        "text": "(7584), 43. Available ",
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                                "text": "online",
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                        "text": "The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study attempt\u00a0\u2014 using risk-exposure relationships\u00a0\u2014 to provide attribution of certain risk factors to disease burden and mortality outcomes.{ref}GBD 2016 Risk Factors Collaborators.\u00a0Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990\u20132016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016.\u00a0",
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                                "text": "The Lancet",
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                    {
                        "text": ". 14 Sept 2017: 390;1345-1422. Available ",
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                        "url": "http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral",
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                        "text": ".{/ref} These risk factors include a wide range, including smoking, diet and nutrition, obesity, alcohol intake, air pollution, & environmental exposures to carcinogens.",
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                        "text": "In the chart we see IHME estimates of the share of global cancer deaths which are attributed to one of these major risk factors. For example, 80 percent of tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer deaths are attributed to risk factors such as smoking and air pollution. The remaining share of deaths we would therefore assume no attribution to risk factors, and would occur naturally in the absence of such risks (i.e. deaths from lung cancer which would result if no one smoked, zero air pollution etc.).{ref}Note that IHME risk factors do not account for sun exposure, which is a ",
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                        "url": "http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/sun-uv-and-cancer/how-the-sun-and-uv-cause-cancer",
                        "children": [
                            {
                                "text": "known risk factor",
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                    {
                        "text": " for skin cancer. Attribution for skin cancers in the data are therefore an underestimate.{/ref}",
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                "url": "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-risk-factors",
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                "text": [
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                        "text": "Cancer by income, poverty and inequality level of the country",
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                        "text": "Cancer deaths by income",
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                        "text": "Whilst cancer prevalence shows a positive relationship to income, death rates from cancer incorporate several factors: cancer prevalence, detection and treatment. When we compare cancer death rates across income we see no strong relationship between these measures. ",
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                        "text": "There is also ",
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                                "text": "no correlation",
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                        "text": " between the level of income inequality in a country and the cancer death rate.",
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                        "text": "Definition of metrics",
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                        "text": "Number of deaths, death rates, and age-standardized rates",
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                        "text": "In this entry we define cancer deaths in three fundamental ways:",
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                                "text": "Absolute (total) number of cancer deaths;",
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                                "text": "Cancer death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals within a given population;",
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                                "text": "Age-standardized death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals assuming a constant and consistent age-structure of population between countries and across time.",
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                        "text": "These measures vary in the information they provide. Absolute (total) number of cancer deaths & prevalence figures provide an important indication of the total cancer burden within a given country or society. This is an important metric for a number of reasons, including the need for management and provision of adequate health services (which is dependent on the total societal burden, not just the incidence or risk for a given individual).",
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                        "text": "However, total number of cancer deaths fails to correct for population size and age. Cancer deaths can therefore rise as a result of higher cancer prevalence and/or poorer treatment, but also due to an increase in total population or an aging population. Cancer death rates correct for changes in population\u00a0",
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                                "text": "size",
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                        "text": ", age-standardized death rates correct for population ",
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2015-07-03 12:10:46

2024-03-01 00:30:13

[
    "Max Roser",
    "Hannah Ritchie"
]

Cancers are one of the leading causes of death globally. Are we making progress against cancer?

2019-11-15 13:47:15

2023-05-25 17:45:52

https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Screenshot-2023-01-15-at-20.35.33.png

{}

This article was first published in July 2015; updated in April 2018 with latest cancer data for the year 2017 – and revised substantially in November 2019. In 2017, 9.6 million people are estimated to have died from the various forms of cancer. Every sixth death in the world is due to cancer, making it the second leading cause of death – second only to cardiovascular diseases.{ref}See the relevant data [here](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-deaths-by-cause). This is data from Schutte, A. E. (2017). Global, regional, and national age-sex specific mortality for 264 causes of death, 1980-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Available [online](http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(17)32152-9.pdf).{/ref} Progress against many other causes of deaths and demographic drivers of increasing [population size](https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#shares-by-world-regions), [life expectancy](https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy) and — particularly in higher-income countries — [aging populations](https://owid.cloud/age-structure) mean that the total number of cancer deaths continues to increase. This is a very personal topic to many: nearly everyone knows or has lost someone dear to them from this collection of diseases. Cancers are defined by the [National Cancer Institute](https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/what-is-cancer) as a collection of diseases in which abnormal cells can divide and spread to nearby tissue. Cancers can arise in many parts of the body – leading to a range of cancer types, as shown below – and in some cases spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymph systems. In this entry we provide an overview of all types of cancer. **[See all interactive charts on cancer ↓](#all-charts)** --- # Cancer is one of the leading causes of death --- ### Almost 10 Million people die from cancer annually Cancer is one of the world's largest health problems. The _Global Burden of Disease_ estimates that 9.56 million people died prematurely as a result of cancer in 2017. [Every sixth death](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-deaths-by-cause) in the world is due to cancer.{ref}The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) put relatively small error margins around this global figure: the lower and upper estimates extend from 9.2 to 9.7 million. Full data on cancer deaths, including upper and lower estimates can be downloaded at the IHME's [Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Results Tool](http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool).{/ref} The _Global Burden of Disease_ is a major global study on the causes and risk factors for death and disease published in the medical journal _The Lancet_.{ref}The latest study can be found at the website of the Lancet here: [TheLancet.com/GBD](https://www.thelancet.com/gbd) The 2017 study was published as GBD 2017 Risk Factor Collaborators – "Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017" and is online [here](http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral-0).{/ref} Cancer is a particularly common cause of death in richer countries where people are less likely do die of infectious diseases and causes of deaths that lead to very early deaths for people in poverty. The chart is shown for the global total, but can be explored for any country or region using the "change country" toggle. Switching to one of the richer countries shows that the share of deaths attributed to cancer is higher. Because cancer is one of the leading causes of death, it is one of the world's most pressing problems to make progress against this disease. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-number-of-deaths-by-cause"/> ## Deaths from cancer In the chart we see the total number of deaths in 2017 attributed to the range of different cancers. The group of tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancers claimed the largest number of lives – 1.9 million in 2017. Next follow colon and rectum, stomach and liver cancer, all claiming between 800,000 and 900,000 globally in 2017. This chart also allows exploring deaths by country (click 'change country' at the bottom of the chart). In exploring patterns across various countries, we see that tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer is the leading form of cancer deaths across most high and middle-income countries. However, the leading form in lower income countries varies: colon and rectum; liver; cervical; stomach; breast and prostrate all top the list in several countries. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-cancer-deaths-by-type"/> ## Cancer deaths by age How are cancer deaths distributed across age groups? And how did this change over time? In the first chart we see the breakdown of total cancer deaths by broad age category, ranging from under-5s to those over 70 years old. Almost half – 46% in 2017 – of all people who die from cancer are 70 or older. Another 41 percent are between 50 and 69 years old – so that 87% of all cancer victims are older than 50 years. The distribution of deaths across the age spectrum has changed notably since 1990. The share of deaths which occur in those aged over 70 has increased by 8 percentage points, whilst the share in those aged 50-69 and 15-49 has fallen. Collectively, children and adolescents under 14 years old account for around one percent of cancer deaths — this equates to around 110,000 children per year. The second chart shows the death rate – the number of cancer deaths of people in a certain age group per 100,000 people of the same age group. Of the people who are 70 years and older more than 1% (i.e. more than 1000 per 100,000) die from cancer each year. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-age?stackMode=relative"/> <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age"/> --- # Cancer prevalence --- What is the prevalence of cancers across the world's population? The charts here provide data on the share of a given population with any form of cancer. This is first shown collectively across all cancer types, followed by breakdown by cancer type. ### The prevalence of cancer around the world The map shows that we tend to see a higher prevalence of cancer in higher-income countries. Prevalence of cancer ranges from approximately 5.5 percent of the population in the US down to around 0.4 percent in the countries shown in light yellow. Globally the share of people with cancer [reached 1.3%](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer?tab=chart&time=1990..2017&country=OWID_WRL) in 2017. ### undefined undefined https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer"/> ### Prevalence of cancer by type When broken down by type of cancer we see that breast cancer is globally the most prevalent form. Following breast cancer are prostrate and colon & rectum cancer. When you change this chart to another country you see that across most countries these are the top three cancer forms. ### undefined undefined https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-type <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-types"/> ## Cancer prevalence by age ### Age breakdown of people with cancer We see that globally the majority of cancers occur in older populations. Approximately 70% of cancer cases occur in those aged over 50. The chart shows that in 2017, 43 percent were aged between 50 and 69 and 27 percent were over 70 years old. Around five percent of global cancers occur in children and adolescents younger than 15. These are predominantly childhood cancers within the group of leukemia. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-age?stackMode=relative"/> ### Prevalence of cancer by age This bar chart compares the prevalence across ages. Globally 6% of those over 70 years had cancer in 2017. Of the population younger than 50 the prevalence is well under 1% globally. In all these charts it is possible to switch to any other country: In the US more than 20% of people older than 70 years are living with cancer according to the estimates of the _Global Burden of Disease_ shown here. In Spain it is 9%. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-by-age"/> ## The global disease burden from cancer Death rates only capture the mortality of cancer. However, the impact of cancer on people's lives is more than that. Many live with cancer for long periods and it is important to also capture the morbidity caused by cancer. The Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) is a metric that captures the total burden of disease – both from years of life lost due to premature death and from years lived with the disease. One DALY equals one lost year of healthy life. The map shows DALYs from cancers, measured per 100,000 individuals. This is age-standardized to allow comparisons between countries and over time._ _This is measured across all cancer types. Also shown are disease burden rates broken down by cancer types. We see that at a global level, the largest burden results from tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer, followed by liver, stomach, colon & rectum, and breast cancer. Extending the timeline of this chart shows how the disease burden has changed for each type of cancer. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-from-cancers"/> <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-by-cancer-types"/> --- # Is the world making progress against cancer? --- About ten million people die from cancer every year. It is the cause of every sixth death. It is one of the largest health problems in the world. How is cancer mortality changing over time? Three different measures allow us to understand how the mortality of cancer has changed: the number of deaths, the death rate, and the age-standardized death rate. A comparison of how these three measures have changed is shown in the visualization. Let’s look at what we can learn from each of these. **The number of cancer deaths increased by 75**% More people than ever before die from cancer – 10.1 million in 2019. In 1990, 5.8 million people died from cancer. This means we have seen a 75% increase in the global _number_ of cancer deaths. **The death rate from cancer increased by 21%** But in a world with more people, we would expect more people to die. As the world [population is growing](https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth) the total number of deaths is rising – since 1990, the number of deaths increased [from 46 million to 56 million](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-by-age-group) per year. This of course means that the number of people who _did not_ die of cancer has also increased. To assess whether we are making progress against cancer we cannot rely on the absolute number of deaths alone. It does not account for the increase of the world population. This is why health statisticians study the number of deaths relative to the size of the population – the death rate. It is measured as the number of cancer deaths per 100,000 people. The chart shows that the death rate from cancer has increased by 21% since 1990. This tells us that if the world population had not increased, then instead of the number of cancer deaths increasing by 75% (as we saw above), they would only have increased by 21%. The difference between the steep rise in the _number_ of deaths and the slower rise of the death _rate_ is due to the increase of the global population. **The age-standardized death rate from cancer declined by 15%** Cancer kills mostly older people – as [the death rate by age](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age) shows, of those who are 70 years and older, 1% die from cancer every year. For people who are younger than 50, the cancer death rate is more than 40-times lower (more detail [here](https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-prevalence-by-age)). We would therefore expect that many more people die from cancer in an old population than in a young population. Because [health is improving](https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy) and [fertility rates are falling](https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate), the world is [aging rapidly](https://ourworldindata.org/age-structure). This impacts the change over time that we are interested in: historically, fewer died from cancer because larger parts of the population died before they reached the age when cancer becomes a common cause of death. Epidemiologists correct for changes in age-profile over time by relying on the so called ‘age-standardized death rate’. This metric tells us what the death rate would be if the age structure of the population had stayed the same over time and would be the same across countries.{ref}The IHME Global Burden of Disease (GBD) [define age-standardization](http://www.healthdata.org/terms-defined) as: “A statistical technique used to compare populations with different age structures, in which the characteristics of the populations are statistically transformed to match those of a reference population.”{/ref} Once we correct for both population changes and aging we get the age-standardized death rate from cancer. Globally this has fallen by 15% since 1990. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-rate-and-age-standardized-rate-index"/> ### The world is making slow progress against cancer The comparison of these three metrics shows that the rise in global cancer deaths is driven by two demographic changes: [population growth](https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#shares-by-world-regions) and population aging. Adjusted for demographic changes we find that the age-standardized death rate from cancer has fallen by 15% since 1990. If you are interested in a particular country you can explore the IHME estimates for all countries in the world by using the “Change country” option in the chart. Cancer survival rates are [higher in richer countries](https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-by-income) and many of these countries have achieved most progress. That the world is slowly making progress is also consistent with two other big trends we have studied before. Almost a quarter of all [cancer deaths are due to smoking](https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#smoking-and-lung-cancer). Since smoking rates are [declining across the world](https://ourworldindata.org/smoking#how-has-the-prevalence-of-smoking-changed-over-time) (especially rapidly in rich countries where smoking was very common in the past), we see a strong decline of death rates from lung cancer rates in many countries. Secondly, as we have [shown here](https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates), the 5-year survival rates for cancers are increasing, and the research we covered suggests that this is due to both earlier detection of cancers and better treatment that increased survival. Given the fact that cancer is one of the world’s largest health problems, a 15% improvement in 29 years does not represent roaring success. But it does show that the world is making slow progress against it. --- # Cancer death rates --- ### Age-standardized cancer death rates by country The age-standardized death rate from all cancer types are shown in this visualization. The global trend shows what we have seen in the previous section: while the number of cancer deaths is increasing, individual death rates are falling. In 1990, 143 people out of every 100,000 died from cancer globally — by 2017 this had fallen to 121 per 100,000. It is possible to switch this chart to the map view. This shows that in 2017, most countries have age-standardized death rates of 50 to 150 deaths per 100,000 individuals. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-per-100000?tab=map"/> ### Age-standardized death rates by type of cancer For the purposes of assessing the total incidence of cancer, in the chart above we grouped all cancer types together to look at overall trends. However, death rates and progress in reducing mortality incidence varies across the many forms of cancer. In the chart we see the individual age-standardized death rates across cancer types. This is again measured as the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals. As we would expect from the leading cause of cancer deaths, rates in tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer are highest globally at 24 per 100,000. This has fallen slightly from 26 per 100,000 in the early 1990s, with even greater declines in some countries (in the US, [rates have fallen](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-type?country=USA) from 47 to 34 per 100,000). The death rate from stomach cancer has fallen substantially – from 19 per 100,000 in 1990 to 11 per 100,000 in 2017 – and contributed to much of the slow global progress against cancer mortality. In some cases we have seen dramatic declines over the last few decades. For some, such as stomach cancer there has been notable progress — declining from 19 to 11 deaths per 100,000. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-type"/> ## The number of cancer deaths is increasing as the world population is growing and aging The number of cancer deaths has increased from around 5.7 million in 1990 to 8.8 million in 2017 as this chart shows. As we just saw, this is happening for two big reasons: The first one is that the world population is increasing and with it the number of annual deaths. In 1990 49 Million people died and since then the number of total deaths has increased by more than 7 Million – as [this chart](https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#how-many-people-die-and-how-many-are-born-each-year) shows. The second big reason is that the world made rapid progress against causes of death that once killed people early in life – especially infectious diseases. [See our entry on [causes of death](https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death) for more information.] This means that the world population is aging and more people are dying of causes that kill people at an older age, like cancer. Because [the world is getting richer](https://owid.cloud/economic-growth) and [fewer are dying an early death](https://owid.cloud/life-expectancy) we can expect the number of people dying from cancer to increase further. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-type-grouped"/> --- # Smoking and lung cancer --- ### The rise and fall of lung cancer This chart shows death rates from lung cancer in the US since 1950. It is possible to view the data for other countries by using the tools in the chart. We see the same rise, peak, and decline pattern that we have seen in the cigarette consumption statistics. These trends are largely driven by the trends in [smoking](https://owid.cloud/smoking). Smoking is the biggest risk factor for lung cancer and we see that the trends in lung cancer follow those in smoking with a lag. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lung-cancer-deaths-per-100000-by-sex-1950-2002"/> ### Share of cancer deaths attributed to smoking The world map shows the Global Burden of Disease estimates of the share of cancer deaths that can be attributed to smoking. Globally, [about a quarter](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-tobacco?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL) of cancer deaths are attributed to smoking. In most richer countries, the share is even higher. In poor countries, where fewer people were smoking in the past, tobacco is responsible for a smaller fraction of cancer deaths. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-tobacco"/> --- # Cancer over the long run --- ### Cancer deaths in the US since 1930 This chart provides a long run perspective on cancer death rates, from 1930 in the United States. In orange we see again the pronounced peaks for lung cancers in men and then later in women. For many other forms of cancer the age-standardized death rates show a long-term decline: * Breast cancer death rates started falling in the early 1990s. * The death rate for prostate increased until the mid 90s and then started to decline sharply. * Colon and rectum cancers declined over the last decades in both men and women. * Pancreas cancer and leukemia increased until the 1970s and then remained at around the same level. * Uterus, liver, and stomach cancers declined continuously over this 80 year period. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-in-the-us"/> --- # What can be done about cancer? --- ## Cancer survival rates ## Cancer survival rates across the world In this charts, we provide the widest coverage across countries of five-year survival rates by cancer type. This data was published in the The Lancet in 2015 by Allemani et al.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., … & Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) – Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995–2009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online [here](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673614620389).{/ref} You can explore the range of countries using the "Change country" selection in the interactive chart. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-by-cancer-type"/> ### Cancer survival rates across the world by type The three maps below show how the five-year survival rates for lung, breast and liver cancer vary across the world. This data is again from Allemani et al. 2015 Lancet paper.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., … & Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) – Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995–2009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online [here](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673614620389).{/ref} ### Lung cancer survival rates across the world In lung cancer Japan has the highest five-year survival rates at approximately 30 percent. In contrast to this only 7% of lung cancer patients are alive five years after diagnosis in Chile, Bulgaria and Mongolia. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-from-lung-cancer"/> ### Breast cancer survival rates across the world In breast cancer, higher income countries in particular across North America, Europe and Oceania tend to have five-year survival rates over 80 percent in 2009. This is almost double that of the lowest nation with available data in 2009 – Jordan – at only 43 percent. A decade earlier the survival rate in Algeria was as low as 17%. <Chart url="https://owid.cloud/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-from-breast-cancer"/> ### Liver cancer survival rates across the world Compared to breast cancer the five year survival rates for liver cancer are much lower around he world. The lowest survival rate in 2009 was in Romania with just 2.3%. In Japan the chance to survive for five years was more than 10-times higher: 27% in 2009. <Chart url="https://owid.cloud/grapher/five-year-survival-rate-from-liver-cancer"/> ### Cancer survival rates by income In these two charts we see that the five-year survival rates – following diagnosis – are lower in poorer countries. Especially for breast cancer survival rates are lower in poorer countries. In high income countries survival rates are above 80% while in many poor countries it is well below 80% or even 60%. The relationship between lung cancer survival rate and average is less strong. There is significant variability in five-year survival rates between countries of a similar income, but the lowest survival rates are again reported from the poorest countries. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/breast-cancer-survival-rates-vs-gdp-per-capita"/> <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lung-cancer-survival-rate-vs-gdp"/> ## Are cancers caused by genetic or external factors? Are cancers caused by genetic factors, or determined by external factors such as behavioral, lifestyle and environmental exposure? The relative contribution of genetic factors (DNA replication and tissue type) versus external exposure has been a dominant topic within cancer research. The outcomes of such studies are highly important — if genetic factors are found to be dominant then early detection and understanding of the relative vulnerability of different DNA and tissue variations arguably present the best opportunity to reduce cancer burden. In contrast, if external and environmental risk factors dominate, then lifestyle choice which reduces risk exposure is crucial for this reduction. In a 2015 paper Cristian Tomasetti and Bert Vogelstein, published in _Science_, the authors conclude that only one-third of cancers are attributable to environmental factors or inherited predispositions; the vast majority result from “bad luck” – random mutations which can occur when DNA replicates in normal non-cancerous cells.{ref}Tomasetti, C., & Vogelstein, B. (2015). Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions. _Science_, _347_(6217), 78-81. Available [online](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6217/78.full).{/ref} This study therefore argued that, beyond some cancer types which are deterministic (D-tumors) and can be reduced through lifestyle factors or [vaccines](https://owid.cloud/vaccination), the most promising approach to reduction of cancer deaths across most cancers (replicative, R-tumors) is early detection. This paper has been highly contested within the scientific literature. A number of later publications in _Science_ provided a rebuttal to these conclusions, suggesting analytical flaws in the prior analysis, and epidemiological evidence which suggests otherwise.{ref}Wild, C., Brennan, P., Plummer, M., Bray, F., Straif, K., & Zavadil, J. (2015). Cancer risk: role of chance overstated. _Science_, _347_(6223), 728-728. Available [online](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/728.1). Song, M., & Giovannucci, E. L. (2015). Cancer risk: many factors contribute. _Science_, _347_(6223), 728-729. Available [online](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/728.3). Ashford, N. A. et al. Cancer risk: role of environment. Science 347, 727 (2015). Available [online](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/727.1).{/ref} Such studies have argue that the role of 'chance' in cancer development was overstated by Tomasetti and Vogelstein, and the role of environmental exposures was understated. Wu et al. (2016) published a study in _Nature_ which concluded that intrinsic factors (which relates to the 'bad luck' DNA replication) account for less than 10-30 percent of cancer development, with the majority resulting from extrinsic risk factors.{ref}Wu, S., Powers, S., Zhu, W., & Hannun, Y. A. (2016). Substantial contribution of extrinsic risk factors to cancer development. _Nature_, _529_(7584), 43. Available [online](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16166.pdf).{/ref} The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study attempt — using risk-exposure relationships — to provide attribution of certain risk factors to disease burden and mortality outcomes.{ref}GBD 2016 Risk Factors Collaborators. Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. _The Lancet_. 14 Sept 2017: 390;1345-1422. Available [online](http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral).{/ref} These risk factors include a wide range, including smoking, diet and nutrition, obesity, alcohol intake, air pollution, & environmental exposures to carcinogens. In the chart we see IHME estimates of the share of global cancer deaths which are attributed to one of these major risk factors. For example, 80 percent of tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer deaths are attributed to risk factors such as smoking and air pollution. The remaining share of deaths we would therefore assume no attribution to risk factors, and would occur naturally in the absence of such risks (i.e. deaths from lung cancer which would result if no one smoked, zero air pollution etc.).{ref}Note that IHME risk factors do not account for sun exposure, which is a [known risk factor](http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/sun-uv-and-cancer/how-the-sun-and-uv-cause-cancer) for skin cancer. Attribution for skin cancers in the data are therefore an underestimate.{/ref} <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-risk-factors"/> ## Cancer by income, poverty and inequality level of the country ### Cancer deaths by income Whilst cancer prevalence shows a positive relationship to income, death rates from cancer incorporate several factors: cancer prevalence, detection and treatment. When we compare cancer death rates across income we see no strong relationship between these measures. There is also [no correlation](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-from-cancers-vs-income-inequality) between the level of income inequality in a country and the cancer death rate. <Chart url="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-from-cancers-vs-average-income"/> --- # Definition of metrics --- ### Number of deaths, death rates, and age-standardized rates In this entry we define cancer deaths in three fundamental ways: * Absolute (total) number of cancer deaths; * Cancer death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals within a given population; * Age-standardized death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals assuming a constant and consistent age-structure of population between countries and across time. These measures vary in the information they provide. Absolute (total) number of cancer deaths & prevalence figures provide an important indication of the total cancer burden within a given country or society. This is an important metric for a number of reasons, including the need for management and provision of adequate health services (which is dependent on the total societal burden, not just the incidence or risk for a given individual). However, total number of cancer deaths fails to correct for population size and age. Cancer deaths can therefore rise as a result of higher cancer prevalence and/or poorer treatment, but also due to an increase in total population or an aging population. Cancer death rates correct for changes in population _size_, age-standardized death rates correct for population _size and age structure_. Age-standardization therefore gives a more indicative measure of the prevalence and incidence of underlying cancer risk factors between countries and with time without the influence of demographic and population structure changes. --- # Data Sources --- ### Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Global Burden of Disease (GBD) * **Data:** Death rates, absolute number of deaths and DALYS across all cancer types * **Geographical coverage:**Global, across all regions and countries * **Time span:**Most metrics available from 1990 onwards * **Available at: **Online [here](http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool) ### International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)/World Health Organization (WHO) * **Data:** Cancer incidence and mortality of major types of cancer by sex * **Geographical coverage:** Approx. 180 countries * **Time span:** 1950-2002 * **Available at:** IARC and WHO's [Globocan 2012 website](http://globocan.iarc.fr/Default.aspx), and at [Gapminder.org](http://www.gapminder.org/data/) * _ On Gapminder, search for “cancer” in the search box to find the data files._ ### National Cancer Institute (NCI) Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program * **Data:** Cancer mortality and incidence for over 30 types of cancers by race/ethnicity, sex and age * **Geographical coverage:** United States * **Time span:** 1975-2010 * **Available at:**[SEER Cancer Statistics Review website](http://seer.cancer.gov/archive/csr/1975_2010/index.html) <AllCharts heading="Interactive charts on cancer"/>

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        "rendered": "\n<div class=\"blog-info\">This article was first published in July 2015; updated in April 2018 with latest cancer data for the year 2017 \u2013 and revised substantially in November 2019.</div>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2017, 9.6 million people are estimated to have died from the various forms of cancer. Every sixth death in the world is due to cancer, making it the second leading cause of death \u2013 second only to&nbsp;cardiovascular diseases.{ref}See the relevant data <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-deaths-by-cause\">here</a>. This is data from Schutte, A. E. (2017). Global, regional, and national age-sex specific mortality for 264 causes of death, 1980-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Available <a href=\"http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(17)32152-9.pdf\">online</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Progress against many other causes of deaths and demographic drivers of increasing <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#shares-by-world-regions\">population size</a>, <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy\">life expectancy</a> and&nbsp;\u2014 particularly in higher-income countries&nbsp;\u2014 <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/age-structure\">aging populations</a> mean that the total number of cancer deaths continues to increase. This is a very personal topic to many: nearly everyone knows or has lost someone dear to them from this collection of diseases.</p>\n\n\n\t<div class=\"wp-block-owid-summary\">\n\t\t<h2>Summary</h2>\n\t\t\n\n<ul><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-is-one-of-the-leading-causes-of-death\">Cancer is one of the leading causes of death.</a></li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-deaths-by-age\">Almost half \u2013 46% in 2017 \u2013 of all people who die from cancer are 70 or older.</a></li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#the-number-of-cancer-deaths-is-increasing-as-the-world-population-is-growing-and-aging\">As the world population is growing and aging the global number of cancer deaths is increasing.</a></li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#is-the-world-making-progress-against-cancer\">Adjusted for the increase and aging of the world population the rate of cancer deaths has declined slowly \u2013 the same is true for many countries. The world is making very slow progress.</a></li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#smoking-and-lung-cancer\">Lung cancer kills most people and smoking is largely to blame. As the share of smokers is declining the rate of lung cancer deaths is following.</a></li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-over-the-long-run\">Cancer death rates for US over the last century show that we are slowly making progress against a number of different cancers.</a></li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-across-the-world\">Cancer survival rates differ strongly between different countries across the world.</a></li><li><a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-by-income\">Cancer survival rates often much lower in poorer countries.</a></li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\n\n\n\t</div>\n\n\n<p>Cancers are defined by the <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/what-is-cancer\" target=\"_blank\">National Cancer Institute</a> as a collection of diseases in which abnormal cells can divide and spread to nearby tissue. Cancers can arise in many parts of the body \u2013 leading to a range of cancer types, as shown below \u2013 and in some cases spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymph systems. In this entry we provide an overview of all types of cancer.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Cancer is one of the leading causes of death</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>Almost 10 Million people die from cancer annually</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Cancer is one of the world&#8217;s largest health problems. The <em>Global Burden of Disease</em> estimates that 9.56 million people died prematurely as a result of cancer in 2017. <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-deaths-by-cause\">Every sixth death</a> in the world is due to cancer.{ref}The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) put relatively small error margins around this global figure: the lower and upper estimates extend from 9.2 to 9.7 million. Full data on cancer deaths, including upper and lower estimates can be downloaded at the IHME&#8217;s <a href=\"http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool\">Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Results Tool</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <em>Global Burden of Disease</em> is a major global study on the causes and risk factors for death and disease published in the medical journal <em>The Lancet</em>.{ref}The latest study can be found at the website of the Lancet here: <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https://www.thelancet.com/gbd\" target=\"_blank\">TheLancet.com/GBD</a> The 2017 study was published as GBD 2017 Risk Factor Collaborators \u2013 &#8220;Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017&#8221; and is online <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral-0\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cancer is a particularly common cause of death in richer countries where people are less likely do die of infectious diseases and causes of deaths that lead to very early deaths for people in poverty.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The chart is shown for the global total, but can be explored for any country or region using the &#8220;change country&#8221; toggle. Switching to one of the richer countries shows that the share of deaths attributed to cancer is higher.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because cancer is one of the leading causes of death, it is one of the world&#8217;s most pressing problems to make progress against this disease. </p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-number-of-deaths-by-cause\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Deaths from cancer</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In the chart we see the total number of deaths in 2017 attributed to the range of different cancers. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The group of tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancers claimed the largest number of lives \u2013 1.9 million in 2017. Next follow colon and rectum, stomach and liver cancer, all claiming between 800,000 and 900,000 globally in 2017.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This chart also allows exploring deaths by country (click &#8216;change country&#8217; at the bottom of the chart).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In exploring patterns across various countries, we see that tracheal, bronchus, and lung cancer is the leading form of cancer deaths across most high and middle-income countries. However, the leading form in lower income countries varies: colon and rectum; liver; cervical; stomach; breast and prostrate all top the list in several countries.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-cancer-deaths-by-type\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Cancer deaths by age</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>How are cancer deaths distributed across age groups? And how did this change over time?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the first chart we see the breakdown of total cancer deaths by broad age category, ranging from under-5s to those over 70 years old. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Almost half \u2013 46% in 2017 \u2013 of all people who die from cancer are 70 or older. Another 41 percent are between 50 and 69 years old \u2013 so that 87% of all cancer victims are older than 50 years.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The distribution of deaths across the age spectrum has changed notably since 1990. The share of deaths which occur in those aged over 70 has increased by 8 percentage points, whilst the share in those aged 50-69 and 15-49 has fallen.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Collectively, children and adolescents under 14 years old account for around one percent of cancer deaths&nbsp;\u2014 this equates to around 110,000 children per year.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second chart shows the death rate \u2013 the number of cancer deaths of people in a certain age group per 100,000 people of the same age group. Of the people who are 70 years and older more than 1% (i.e. more than 1000 per 100,000) die from cancer each year.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-age?stackMode=relative\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2>Cancer prevalence</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>What is the prevalence of cancers across the world&#8217;s population? </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The charts here provide data on the share of a given population with any form of cancer. This is first shown collectively across all cancer types, followed by breakdown by cancer type. </p>\n\n\n\n<h4>The prevalence of cancer around the world</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The map shows that we tend to see a higher prevalence of cancer in higher-income countries. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prevalence of cancer ranges from approximately 5.5 percent of the population in the US down to around 0.4 percent in the countries shown in light yellow.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Globally the share of people with cancer <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer?tab=chart&amp;time=1990..2017&amp;country=OWID_WRL\">reached 1.3%</a> in 2017.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><strong>Related chart \u2013 the <em>number</em> of people with cancer</strong>: <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer\">This map</a> shows the total number of people with cancer across all countries of the world.</p></blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Prevalence of cancer by type</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>When broken down by type of cancer we see that breast cancer is globally the most prevalent form. Following breast cancer are prostrate and colon &amp; rectum cancer. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you change this chart to another country you see that across most countries these are the top three cancer forms.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><strong>Related chart \u2013 the <em>number</em> of people with cancer, by type</strong>: <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-type\">This chart</a> shows the numbers of people with different types of cancer. As we explored above, the prevalence of breast cancer is highest globally; an estimated 17 million had breast cancer in 2017. 10 million had prostate cancer; and 9 million had colon &amp; rectum cancer.</p></blockquote>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-types\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Cancer prevalence by age</h3>\n\n\n\n<h4>Age breakdown of people with cancer</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>We see that globally the majority of cancers occur in older populations. Approximately 70% of cancer cases occur in those aged over 50.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The chart shows that in 2017, 43 percent were aged between 50 and 69 and 27 percent were over 70 years old.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Around five percent of global cancers occur in children and adolescents younger than 15. These are predominantly childhood cancers within the group of leukemia.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-with-cancer-by-age?stackMode=relative\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Prevalence of cancer by age</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>This bar chart compares the prevalence across ages. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Globally 6% of those over 70 years had cancer in 2017. Of the population younger than 50 the prevalence is well under 1% globally.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In all these charts it is possible to switch to any other country: In the US more than 20% of people older than 70 years are living with cancer according to the estimates of the <em>Global Burden of Disease</em> shown here. In Spain it is 9%.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer-by-age\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>The global disease burden from cancer</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Death rates only capture the mortality of cancer. However, the impact of cancer on people&#8217;s lives is more than that. Many live with cancer for long periods and it is important to also capture the morbidity caused by cancer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) is a metric that captures the total burden of disease \u2013 both from years of life lost due to premature death and from years lived with the disease. One DALY equals one lost year of healthy life.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The map shows DALYs from cancers, measured per 100,000 individuals. This is age-standardized to allow comparisons between countries and over time.<em> </em>This is measured across all cancer types. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also shown are disease burden rates broken down by cancer types. We see that at a global level, the largest burden results from tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer, followed by liver, stomach, colon &amp; rectum, and breast cancer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Extending the timeline of this chart shows how the disease burden has changed for each type of cancer.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-from-cancers\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/disease-burden-rates-by-cancer-types\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2>Is the world making progress against cancer?</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>About ten million people die from cancer every year. It is the cause of every sixth death.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is one of the largest health problems in the world. How is cancer mortality changing over time?&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Three different measures allow us to understand how the mortality of cancer has changed: the number of deaths, the death rate, and the age-standardized death rate. A comparison of how these three measures have changed is shown in the visualization.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s look at what we can learn from each of these.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The number of cancer deaths increased by 75</strong>%</p>\n\n\n\n<p>More people than ever before die from cancer \u2013 10.1 million in 2019.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1990, 5.8 million people died from cancer. This means we have seen a 75% increase in the global <em>number</em> of cancer deaths.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The death rate from cancer increased by 21%</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>But in a world with more people, we would expect more people to die. As the world <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth\">population is growing</a> the total number of deaths is rising \u2013 since 1990, the number of deaths increased <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-by-age-group\">from 46 million to 56 million</a> per year.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This of course means that the number of people who <em>did not</em> die of cancer has also increased. To assess whether we are making progress against cancer we cannot rely on the absolute number of deaths alone. It does not account for the increase of the world population.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is why health statisticians study the number of deaths relative to the size of the population \u2013 the death rate. It is measured as the number of cancer deaths per 100,000 people.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The chart shows that the death rate from cancer has increased by 21% since 1990. This tells us that if the world population had not increased, then instead of the number of cancer deaths increasing by 75% (as we saw above), they would only have increased by 21%.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The difference between the steep rise in the <em>number</em> of deaths and the slower rise of the death <em>rate</em> is due to the increase of the global population.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The age-standardized death rate from cancer declined by 15%</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cancer kills mostly older people \u2013 as <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-age\">the death rate by age</a> shows, of those who are 70 years and older, 1% die from cancer every year. For people who are younger than 50, the cancer death rate is more than 40-times lower (more detail <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-prevalence-by-age\">here</a>).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We would therefore expect that many more people die from cancer in an old population than in a young population. Because <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy\">health is improving</a> and <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rate\">fertility rates are falling</a>, the world is <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/age-structure\">aging rapidly</a>. This impacts the change over time that we are interested in: historically, fewer died from cancer because larger parts of the population died before they reached the age when cancer becomes a common cause of death.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Epidemiologists correct for changes in age-profile over time by relying on the so called \u2018age-standardized death rate\u2019. This metric tells us what the death rate would be if the age structure of the population had stayed the same over time and would be the same across countries.{ref}The IHME Global Burden of Disease (GBD) <a href=\"http://www.healthdata.org/terms-defined\">define age-standardization</a> as: \u201cA statistical technique used to compare populations with different age structures, in which the characteristics of the populations are statistically transformed to match those of a reference population.\u201d{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once we correct for both population changes and aging we get the age-standardized death rate from cancer. Globally this has fallen by 15% since 1990.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-rate-and-age-standardized-rate-index\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>The world is making slow progress against cancer</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The comparison of these three metrics shows that the rise in global cancer deaths is driven by two demographic changes: <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#shares-by-world-regions\">population growth</a> and population aging.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adjusted for demographic changes we find that the age-standardized death rate from cancer has fallen by 15% since 1990.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you are interested in a particular country you can explore the IHME estimates for all countries in the world by using the \u201cChange country\u201d option in the chart. Cancer survival rates are <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates-by-income\">higher in richer countries</a> and many of these countries have achieved most progress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That the world is slowly making progress is also consistent with two other big trends we have studied before.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Almost a quarter of all <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#smoking-and-lung-cancer\">cancer deaths are due to smoking</a>. Since smoking rates are <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/smoking#how-has-the-prevalence-of-smoking-changed-over-time\">declining across the world</a> (especially rapidly in rich countries where smoking was very common in the past), we see a strong decline of death rates from lung cancer rates in many countries.&nbsp;</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Secondly, as we have <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/cancer#cancer-survival-rates\">shown here</a>, the 5-year survival rates for cancers are increasing, and the research we covered suggests that this is due to both earlier detection of cancers and better treatment that increased survival.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Given the fact that cancer is one of the world\u2019s largest health problems, a 15% improvement in 29 years does not represent roaring success. But it does show that the world is making slow progress against it.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Cancer death rates</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>Age-standardized cancer death rates by country</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The age-standardized death rate from all cancer types are shown in this visualization.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The global trend shows what we have seen in the previous section: while the number of cancer deaths is increasing, individual death rates are falling. In 1990, 143 people out of every 100,000 died from cancer globally&nbsp;\u2014 by 2017 this had fallen to 121 per 100,000.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is possible to switch this chart to the map view. This shows that in 2017, most countries have age-standardized death rates of 50 to 150 deaths per 100,000 individuals. </p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-per-100000?tab=map\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Age-standardized death rates by type of cancer</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>For the purposes of assessing the total incidence of cancer, in the chart above we grouped all cancer types together to look at overall trends. However, death rates and progress in reducing mortality incidence varies across the many forms of cancer. In the chart we see the individual age-standardized death rates across cancer types. This is again measured as the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we would expect from the leading cause of cancer deaths, rates in tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer are highest globally at 24 per 100,000. This has fallen slightly from 26 per 100,000 in the early 1990s, with even greater declines in some countries (in the US, <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-type?country=USA\">rates have fallen</a> from 47 to 34 per 100,000).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The death rate from stomach cancer has fallen substantially \u2013 from 19 per 100,000 in 1990 to 11 per 100,000 in 2017 \u2013 and contributed to much of the slow global progress against cancer mortality.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In some cases we have seen dramatic declines over the last few decades. For some, such as stomach cancer there has been notable progress&nbsp;\u2014 declining from 19 to 11 deaths per 100,000.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-by-type\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>The number of cancer deaths is increasing as the world population is growing and aging </h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The number of cancer deaths has increased from around 5.7 million in 1990 to 8.8 million in 2017 as this chart shows. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we just saw, this is happening for two big reasons: The first one is that the world population is increasing and with it the number of annual deaths. In 1990 49 Million people died and since then the number of total deaths has increased by more than 7 Million \u2013 as <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#how-many-people-die-and-how-many-are-born-each-year\">this chart</a> shows.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second big reason is that the world made rapid progress against causes of death that once killed people early in life \u2013 especially infectious diseases. [See our entry on <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death\">causes of death</a> for more information.] This means that the world population is aging and more people are dying of causes that kill people at an older age, like cancer. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/economic-growth\">the world is getting richer</a> and <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/life-expectancy\">fewer are dying an early death</a> we can expect the number of people dying from cancer to increase further.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-type-grouped\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2>Smoking and lung cancer</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>The rise and fall of lung cancer</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>This chart shows death rates from lung cancer in the US since 1950. It is possible to view the data for other countries by using the tools in the chart.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We see the same rise, peak, and decline pattern that we have seen in the cigarette consumption statistics.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These trends are largely driven by the trends in <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/smoking\">smoking</a>. Smoking is the biggest risk factor for lung cancer and we see that the trends in lung cancer follow those in smoking with a lag.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lung-cancer-deaths-per-100000-by-sex-1950-2002\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Share of cancer deaths attributed to smoking</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The world map shows the Global Burden of Disease estimates of the share of cancer deaths that can be attributed to smoking.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Globally, <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-tobacco?tab=chart&amp;country=~OWID_WRL\">about a quarter</a> of cancer deaths are attributed to smoking.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In most richer countries, the share is even higher.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In poor countries, where fewer people were smoking in the past, tobacco is responsible for a smaller fraction of cancer deaths.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-tobacco\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2>Cancer over the long run</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>Cancer deaths in the US since 1930</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>This chart provides a long run perspective on cancer death rates, from 1930 in the United States.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In orange we see again the pronounced peaks for lung cancers in men and then later in women.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For many other forms of cancer the age-standardized death rates show a long-term decline:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Breast cancer death rates started falling in the early 1990s.</li><li>The death rate for prostate increased until the mid 90s and then started to decline sharply.</li><li>Colon and rectum cancers declined over the last decades in both men and women.</li><li>Pancreas cancer and leukemia increased until the 1970s and then remained at around the same level.</li><li>Uterus, liver, and stomach cancers declined continuously over this 80 year period.</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-death-rates-in-the-us\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2>What can be done about cancer?</h2>\n\n\n\n<h3>Cancer survival rates</h3>\n\n\n\n<h3>Cancer survival rates across the world</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In this charts, we provide the widest coverage across countries of five-year survival rates by cancer type. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>This data was published in the The Lancet in 2015 by Allemani et al.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., \u2026 &amp; Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) \u2013 Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995\u20132009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online <a href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673614620389\">here</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can explore the range of countries using the &#8220;Change country&#8221; selection in the interactive chart.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-by-cancer-type\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Cancer survival rates across the world by type</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The three maps below show how the five-year survival rates for lung, breast and liver cancer vary across the world. This data is again from Allemani et al. 2015 Lancet paper.{ref}Allemani, C., Weir, H. K., Carreira, H., Harewood, R., Spika, D., Wang, X. S., \u2026 &amp; Marcos-Gragera, R. (2015) \u2013 Global surveillance of cancer survival 1995\u20132009: analysis of individual data for 25 676 887 patients from 279 population-based registries in 67 countries (CONCORD-2). The Lancet, 385(9972), 977-1010. Online <a href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673614620389\">here</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<h4>Lung cancer survival rates across the world</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>In lung cancer Japan has the highest five-year survival rates at approximately 30 percent.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In contrast to this only 7% of lung cancer patients are alive five years after diagnosis in Chile, Bulgaria and Mongolia.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-from-lung-cancer\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Breast cancer survival rates across the world</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>In breast cancer, higher income countries in particular across North America, Europe and Oceania tend to have five-year survival rates over 80 percent in 2009.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is almost double that of the lowest nation with available data in 2009 \u2013 Jordan \u2013 at only 43 percent. A decade earlier the survival rate in Algeria was as low as 17%.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/grapher/five-year-survival-rates-from-breast-cancer\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Liver cancer survival rates across the world</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Compared to breast cancer the five year survival rates for liver cancer are much lower around he world.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The lowest survival rate in 2009 was in Romania with just 2.3%. In Japan the chance to survive for five years was more than 10-times higher: 27% in 2009.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://owid.cloud/grapher/five-year-survival-rate-from-liver-cancer\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h4>Cancer survival rates by income</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>In these two charts we see that the five-year survival rates \u2013 following diagnosis \u2013 are lower in poorer countries.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Especially for breast cancer survival rates are lower in poorer countries. In high income countries survival rates are above 80% while in many poor countries it is well below 80% or even 60%. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The relationship between lung cancer survival rate and average is less strong. There is significant variability in five-year survival rates between countries of a similar income, but the lowest survival rates are again reported from the poorest countries.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/breast-cancer-survival-rates-vs-gdp-per-capita\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/lung-cancer-survival-rate-vs-gdp\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Are cancers caused by genetic or external factors?</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Are cancers caused by genetic factors, or determined by external factors such as behavioral, lifestyle and environmental exposure? </p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">The relative contribution of genetic factors (DNA replication and tissue type) versus external exposure has been a dominant topic within cancer research. The outcomes of such studies are highly important&nbsp;\u2014 if genetic factors are found to be dominant then early detection and understanding of the relative vulnerability of different DNA and tissue variations arguably present the best opportunity to reduce cancer burden. In contrast, if external and environmental risk factors dominate, then lifestyle choice which reduces risk exposure is crucial for this reduction.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a 2015 paper Cristian Tomasetti and Bert Vogelstein, published in&nbsp;<em>Science</em>, the authors conclude that only one-third of cancers are attributable to environmental factors or inherited predispositions; the vast majority result from \u201cbad luck\u201d \u2013 random mutations which can occur when DNA replicates in normal non-cancerous cells.{ref}Tomasetti, C., &amp; Vogelstein, B. (2015). Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions.&nbsp;<em>Science</em>,&nbsp;<em>347</em>(6217), 78-81. Available <a href=\"http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6217/78.full\">online</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This study therefore argued that, beyond some cancer types which are deterministic (D-tumors) and can be reduced through lifestyle factors or <a href=\"https://owid.cloud/vaccination\">vaccines</a>, the most promising approach to reduction of cancer deaths across most cancers (replicative, R-tumors) is early detection.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This paper has been highly contested within the scientific literature. A number of later publications in&nbsp;<em>Science</em> provided a rebuttal to these conclusions, suggesting analytical flaws in the prior analysis, and epidemiological evidence which suggests otherwise.{ref}Wild, C., Brennan, P., Plummer, M., Bray, F., Straif, K., &amp; Zavadil, J. (2015). Cancer risk: role of chance overstated.&nbsp;<em>Science</em>,&nbsp;<em>347</em>(6223), 728-728. Available <a href=\"http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/728.1\">online</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Song, M., &amp; Giovannucci, E. L. (2015). Cancer risk: many factors contribute.&nbsp;<em>Science</em>,&nbsp;<em>347</em>(6223), 728-729. Available <a href=\"http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/728.3\">online</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ashford, N. A. et al. Cancer risk: role of environment. Science 347, 727 (2015). Available <a href=\"http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/727.1\">online</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Such studies have argue that the role of &#8216;chance&#8217; in cancer development was overstated by Tomasetti and Vogelstein, and the role of environmental exposures was understated. Wu et al. (2016) published&nbsp;a study in&nbsp;<em>Nature</em> which concluded that intrinsic factors (which relates to the &#8216;bad luck&#8217; DNA replication) account for less than 10-30 percent of cancer development, with the majority resulting from extrinsic risk factors.{ref}Wu, S., Powers, S., Zhu, W., &amp; Hannun, Y. A. (2016). Substantial contribution of extrinsic risk factors to cancer development.&nbsp;<em>Nature</em>,&nbsp;<em>529</em>(7584), 43. Available <a href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16166.pdf\">online</a>.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study attempt&nbsp;\u2014 using risk-exposure relationships&nbsp;\u2014 to provide attribution of certain risk factors to disease burden and mortality outcomes.{ref}GBD 2016 Risk Factors Collaborators.&nbsp;Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990\u20132016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016.&nbsp;<em>The Lancet</em>. 14 Sept 2017: 390;1345-1422. Available <a href=\"http://www.healthdata.org/research-article/global-regional-and-national-comparative-risk-assessment-84-behavioral\">online</a>.{/ref} These risk factors include a wide range, including smoking, diet and nutrition, obesity, alcohol intake, air pollution, &amp; environmental exposures to carcinogens.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the chart we see IHME estimates of the share of global cancer deaths which are attributed to one of these major risk factors. For example, 80 percent of tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer deaths are attributed to risk factors such as smoking and air pollution. The remaining share of deaths we would therefore assume no attribution to risk factors, and would occur naturally in the absence of such risks (i.e. deaths from lung cancer which would result if no one smoked, zero air pollution etc.).{ref}Note that IHME risk factors do not account for sun exposure, which is a <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/sun-uv-and-cancer/how-the-sun-and-uv-cause-cancer\" target=\"_blank\">known risk factor</a> for skin cancer. Attribution for skin cancers in the data are therefore an underestimate.{/ref}</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-cancer-deaths-attributed-to-risk-factors\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h3>Cancer by income, poverty and inequality level of the country</h3>\n\n\n\n<h4>Cancer deaths by income</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Whilst cancer prevalence shows a positive relationship to income, death rates from cancer incorporate several factors: cancer prevalence, detection and treatment. When we compare cancer death rates across income we see no strong relationship between these measures. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is also <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-from-cancers-vs-income-inequality\">no correlation</a> between the level of income inequality in a country and the cancer death rate.</p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: 600px; border: 0px none;\" src=\"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-from-cancers-vs-average-income\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\"></iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2>Definition of metrics</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>Number of deaths, death rates, and age-standardized rates</h4>\n\n\n\n<p>In this entry we define cancer deaths in three fundamental ways:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Absolute (total) number of cancer deaths;</li><li>Cancer death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals within a given population;</li><li>Age-standardized death rate: this reports the number of deaths per 100,000 individuals assuming a constant and consistent age-structure of population between countries and across time.</li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p>These measures vary in the information they provide. Absolute (total) number of cancer deaths &amp; prevalence figures provide an important indication of the total cancer burden within a given country or society. This is an important metric for a number of reasons, including the need for management and provision of adequate health services (which is dependent on the total societal burden, not just the incidence or risk for a given individual).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, total number of cancer deaths fails to correct for population size and age. Cancer deaths can therefore rise as a result of higher cancer prevalence and/or poorer treatment, but also due to an increase in total population or an aging population. Cancer death rates correct for changes in population&nbsp;<em>size</em>, age-standardized death rates correct for population <em>size and age structure</em>.&nbsp;Age-standardization therefore gives a more indicative measure of the prevalence and incidence of underlying cancer risk factors between countries and with time without the influence of demographic and population structure changes.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Data Sources</h2>\n\n\n\n<h4>Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Global Burden of Disease (GBD)</h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Data:</strong> Death rates, absolute number of deaths and DALYS across all cancer types</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong>Global, across all regions and countries</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong>Most metrics available from 1990 onwards</li><li><strong>Available at:&nbsp;</strong>Online <a href=\"http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool\">here</a></li></ul>\n\n\n\n<h4>International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)/World Health Organization (WHO)</h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Data:</strong> Cancer incidence and mortality of major types of cancer by sex</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong>&nbsp;Approx. 180 countries</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong>&nbsp;1950-2002</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong>&nbsp;IARC and WHO&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href=\"http://globocan.iarc.fr/Default.aspx\">Globocan 2012 website</a>, and at&nbsp;<a href=\"http://www.gapminder.org/data/\">Gapminder.org</a></li><li class=\"no-bullet\"><em>&nbsp;On Gapminder, search for \u201ccancer\u201d in the search box to find the data files.</em></li></ul>\n\n\n\n<h4>National Cancer Institute (NCI) Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program</h4>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Data:</strong> Cancer mortality and incidence for over 30 types of cancers by race/ethnicity, sex and age</li><li><strong>Geographical coverage:</strong> United States</li><li><strong>Time span:</strong> 1975-2010</li><li><strong>Available at:</strong> <a href=\"http://seer.cancer.gov/archive/csr/1975_2010/index.html\">SEER Cancer Statistics Review website</a></li></ul>\n",
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        "rendered": "Cancers are one of the leading causes of death globally. Are we making progress against cancer?",
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    "date_gmt": "2015-07-03T12:10:46",
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    "authors_name": [
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