Global cancer cases expected to surge, says WHO experts

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Global cancer cases will jump by more than two-thirds over the coming decades, driving an unprecedented surge in mortality that will hit poorer nations hardest and push millions of families into catastrophic debt, global health authorities warned.

New forecasts published by the World Health Organisation and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) project that annual cancer incidence will reach 67% from 20.6 million cases in 2024 to more than 34 million by 2050 and global deaths are expected to rise even faster jumping 79% from 9.2 million to 17.5 million annually.

The figures, unveiled at the opening session of the World Cancer Congress in Hong Kong before more than 2,000 delegates from more than 120 countries, showed a disease burden accelerating far beyond the capacity of existing healthcare systems.

Among the participating countries in this year's congress is Uganda with about 20 delegates, a country where cancer burden claims approximately 36,000 new cancer cases and over 24,000 deaths annually, with women accounting for about 55% of all diagnoses.

While the global demographic ageing and population growth drive the headline expansion, health leaders warned that the geography of the crisis is rising sharply. The steepest rises in incidence and mortality are concentrated across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. In low-income countries, cancer deaths are forecast to double by 2050.

"The cancer burden is rising sharply, projections already show cases rising 29% to 26.5 million by 2035. The estimated global economic cost of cancer over the period 2020 to 2050 is 25.2 trillion US dollars. It's just unimaginable," said Ulrika Årehed Kågström, president of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC).

She noted that the estimated global economic cost of cancer over the period 2020 to 2050 is 25.2 trillion U.S. dollars and yet domestic financing for cancer is still insufficient with 81% of countries have national control plans, but less than 10% of these are fully funded.

Addressing delegates virtually, WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus revealed findings from the agency’s first global survey of cancer patients, noting that more than half reported mental illness and another half suffered severe financial hardship.

"Patients reported having to sell their homes just to pay for care. Inequities persist, with major survival differences between high- and low-income countries, and premature cancer mortalities rising in 48 countries. We know what works. The gap is in implementation," Dr Tedros said

Tedros said the burden of cancer goes more than mortality cases because half of reported cases get mental illness. He said another half of the global cases, especially those in poor countries, reported financial hardship, including having to sell their homes to pay for care.

Globally, half of all cancers are still diagnosed at an advanced stage, where five-year survival rates sink yet fewer than 50% of the world’s population has access to routine diagnostic services, leaving patients in low- and middle-income countries forced to cover costs out of pocket or forgo diagnosis entirely.

While updating the world on the global state of cancer control, Cary Adams the chief executive of the UICC stressed that cancer now touches 92% of people worldwide during their lifetime, either through their own diagnosis or that of an immediate family member.

Adams said that while more than 85% of countries have drafted national cancer control plans, only 27% include an actual financing strategy, and fewer than 10% are fully funded.

"We have to make a better financial case for cancer control," Adams told delegates, pointing out that 76 governments have sought assistance in Geneva simply to learn how to convince their own finance ministries to fund baseline cancer measures.

The surge also comes as public health systems falter on preventable causes. IARC estimates that 37.8% of new cancer cases stem from modifiable risks, led by tobacco smoking (15.1%), infections (10.2%), and alcohol consumption (3.2%).

The report highlighted that while global smoking prevalence has dropped, population growth has left the absolute number of smokers worldwide stagnant at 1.1 to 1.2 billion. New estimates also showed that 43% of the global population is now overweight or obese an increase from 31% in 2010, with no country successfully reversing the trend.

While 115 countries provide universal hepatitis B vaccination at birth to curb liver cancer, coverage stands at 78% in the Western Pacific compared to just 17% in Africa. For human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, designed to eliminate cervical cancer, uptake reaches 70% in Latin America but languishes at 2% in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Presenting data from China's network of nearly 3,000 population-based registries, Professor Jie He, director of China's National Cancer Center reported 5.15 million new diagnoses and 2.58 million cancer deaths in China in 2024 alone.

According to Jie, while centralised guidelines and digital databases covering 30 million hospital records have helped lift five-year survival from 30% to 43.7%, cancer incidence within China still exhibits a 70% regional variation between provinces.