Lung cancer mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

GLOBOCAN 2008 is an important resource for cancerresearch and health policy. Mortality and incidence estimatesof crude rates, age-standardized rates and absolute number ofcases by country and sex for the year 2008 are provided. Weagree with their conclusion that ‘‘Already the majority of theglobal cancer burden now occurs in developing countries,these proportions will rise in the next decades if rates remainunchanged.’’ Given the demographic transition that isongoing in developing countries, the absolute numbers willalmost certainly rise in the future.In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), population-based data onlung cancer incidence or mortality are not available, exceptSouth Africa and smaller island states. GLOBOCAN uses