Global cancer statistics 2024: translating epidemiological trends into priorities for healthcare systems

A review in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology discusses the global cancer burden using GLOBOCAN 2024 estimates: in 2024, 20.6 million people across 186 countries were diagnosed with cancer and 9.8 million died of it. Lung cancer remains the most common — 2.6 million new cases (12.8%) and 1.9 million deaths (19.1%) — ahead of female breast cancer (11.8% of cases), colorectal cancer (9.9%) and prostate cancer (7.5%). The IARC projects a rise to 34.4 million new cases a year by 2050, an increase of 67% over 2024, driven mainly by population growth and ageing. The authors translate these trends into priorities for health systems, arguing that regional differences in outcomes reflect risk-factor exposure and access to care rather than tumour biology alone.