Projection of the number of new cancer cases in the world.

Abstract

To compare the estimated number of cancer cases from 2020 to 2040 between Japan and other countries, we extracted information on reported projection of the number of new cancer cases from ‘Global Cancer Observatory’ website (1). In this site, the predicted future cancer burden worldwide from the estimates in 2020 up until 2040 were reported. The estimats were assumed that the incidence rate by sex and age group for each country in 2020 remain the same through 2040. And the incidence rates in 2020 were then estimated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (2). This means that the increase or decrease in the number of cancer cases will depend only on the projected population. We calculated the incremental growth rate to 2040 prediction relative to the number of cases in 2020, and showed on the Figures how much the incremental growth will be for each country. Figure 1 showed the trend of estimated newly cancer cases for males. In China, the incidence in 2020 is very high compared to other countries, about double that of the USA, and is expected to increase rapidly, reaching 3 837 000 in 2040. The USA also has high estimated number of new cancer cases in 2040, followed by Japan, Brazil and Germany. In terms of the rate of increase between 2020 and 2040 among these four countries, Brazil has the highest rate at 76.2%, followed by the USA at 41.9%, Germany at 26.0% and Japan at 12.6%. In all other countries, the number of new cancer cases were expected to increase. The number of new cases depend, of course, on the size of the population, with the largest increases in Uganda (122.4%), Colombia (78.0%), Egypt (75.7%) and Republic of Korea (70.2%), and relatively small increases in the three European countries (26–35%).