Highest Incidence Cancers Study: A Real Global Analysis
Global Highest Incidence Cancers Study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29409/2hwkzh61Keywords:
Breast cancer, Lung cancer, Prostate cancerAbstract
Background: According to World Health Organization publications, cancer arises from the transformation of normal cells into tumor cells in a multi-stage process that generally develops from a precancerous lesion to a malignant tumor. These changes result from the interaction between a person’s genetic factors and three categories of external factors: physical carcinogenic factors, chemical carcinogenic factors, and biological carcinogenic factors. The incidence of cancer increases sharply with age, and the accumulation of cancer risks is associated with the tendency for the effectiveness of cell repair mechanisms to decline as the person ages. This paper highlights the three main cancers that are most common in the world: female breast, prostate, and lung, accompanied by global statistical indicators by region.
Material & Methods: Publications for the year 2024 on the incidence and mortality of the most common cancer diseases in global regions were used. A comparison was made by types of cancers by regions and finding their indicators, illustrated with graphs, for the three cancers.
Results: The data analysis indicated that the mortality-to-incidence ratio (MIR) was lowest for female breast cancer (0.29), intermediate for prostate cancer (0.27), and highest for lung cancer (0.73). While Asia had the highest incidence of the three cancers, Africa demonstrated the highest mortality in relation to incidence.
Conclusion: The results of the analysis of the data of the three most prevalent cancers showed that in the developed countries, despite the high number of cancer cases, their deaths were the least due to the sound health environment and the availability of diagnostic and treatment factors, unlike the continent of Africa, their death rate was the highest among other continents, despite the low prevalence.
References
1- Brown JS, Amend SR, Austin RH, Gatenby RA, Hammarlund EU, Pienta KJ. Updating the Definition of Cancer. Mol Cancer Res. 2023 Nov 1;21(11):1142-1147. doi: 10.1158/1541-7786.MCR-23-0411.
2- WHO, International Agency for Research on Cancer, 2022
3- Rezende LFM, Murata E, Giannichi B, Tomita LY, Wagner GA, Sanchez ZM, Celis-Morales C, Ferrari G. Cancer cases and deaths attributable to lifestyle risk factors in Chile. BMC Cancer. 2020 Jul 25;20(1):693. doi: 10.1186/s12885-020-07187-4.
4- Diakite M, Shaw-Saliba K, Lau CY. Malignancy and viral infections in Sub-Saharan Africa: A review. Front Virol. 2023;3:1103737. doi: 10.3389/fviro.2023.1103737.
5- Sung H, Ferlay J, Siegel RL, Laversanne M, Soerjomataram I, Jemal A, Bray F. Global cancer statistics 2020: GLOBOCAN estimates of incidence and mortality worldwide for 36 cancers in 185 countries. CA Cancer J Clin. 2021 Feb 4. doi: 10.3322/caac.21660.
6- Ferlay J, Ervik M, Lam F, Laversanne M, Colombet M, Mery L, Piñeros M, Znaor A, Soerjomataram I, Bray F (2024). Global Cancer Observatory: Cancer Today. Lyon, France: International Agency for Research on Cancer. Available from: https://gco.iarc.who.int/today.
7- Łukasiewicz S, Czeczelewski M, Forma A, Baj J, Sitarz R, Stanisławek A. Breast Cancer-Epidemiology, Risk Factors, Classification, Prognostic Markers, and Current Treatment Strategies-An Updated Review. Cancers (Basel). 2021 Aug 25;13(17):4287. doi: 10.3390/cancers13174287.
8- Arnold M, Morgan E, Rumgay H, Mafra A, Singh D, Laversanne M, Vignat J, Gralow JR, Cardoso F, Siesling S, Soerjomataram I. Current and future burden of breast cancer: Global statistics for 2020 and 2040. Breast. 2022 Dec;66:15-23. doi: 10.1016/j.breast.2022.08.010.
9- Huang J, Ngai CH, Deng Y, Tin MS, Lok V, Zhang L, Yuan J, Xu W, Zheng ZJ, Wong MCS. Cancer Incidence and Mortality in Asian Countries: A Trend Analysis. Cancer Control. 2022 Jan-Dec;29:10732748221095955. doi: 10.1177/10732748221095955.
10- LoPiccolo J, Gusev A, Christiani DC, Jänne PA. Lung cancer in patients who have never smoked - an emerging disease. Nat Rev Clin Oncol. 2024 Feb;21(2):121-146. doi: 10.1038/s41571-023-00844-0.
11- National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion; Division of Cancer Prevention and Control
12- Shariful Islam M, Rashid M, Sizear MI, Hassan R, Rahman M, Parvez SM, Hore SC, Haque R, Jahan F, Chowdhury S, Huda TMN, Saif-Ur-Rahman KM, Khan A. Cigarette smoking and associated factors among men in five South Asian countries: A pooled analysis of nationally representative surveys. PLoS One. 2022 Nov 14;17(11):e0277758. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277758. Erratum in: PLoS One. 2024 Dec 5;19(12):e0315447. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0315447.
13- Ra CK, Pehlivan N, Kim H, Sussman S, Unger JB, Businelle MS. Smoking prevalence among Asian Americans: Associations with education, acculturation, and gender. Prev Med Rep. 2022 Oct 28;30:102035. doi: 10.1016/j.pmedr.2022.102035.
14- Rey Brandariz J, Rumgay H, Ayo-Yusuf O, Edwards R, Islami F, Liu S, Pérez-Ríos M, Rodrigues Pinto Corrêa PC, Ruano-Ravina A, Soerjomataram I. Estimated impact of a tobacco-elimination strategy on lung-cancer mortality in 185 countries: a population-based birth-cohort simulation study. Lancet Public Health. 2024 Oct;9(10):e745-e754. doi: 10.1016/S2468-2667(24)00185-3.
15- David MK, Leslie SW. Prostate-Specific Antigen. [Updated 2024 Sep 10]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2025 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557495/
16- Taha DE, Aboumarzouk OM, Koraiem IO, Shokeir AA. Antibiotic therapy in patients with high prostate-specific antigen: Is it worth considering? A systematic review. Arab J Urol. 2020;18(1):1-8.
17- Beyer K, Leenen R, Venderbos LDF, Helleman J, Denijs F, Bramer W, Vasilyeva V, Briers E, Rivas JG, Chloupkova R, Majek O, Annemans L, Vynckier P, Basu P, Chandran A, van den Bergh R, Collen S, van Poppel H, Roobol MJ; The PRAISE-U Consortium. Health Policy for Prostate Cancer Early Detection in the European Union and the Impact of Opportunistic Screening: PRAISE-U Consortium. J Pers Med. 2024 Jan 11;14(1):84. doi: 10.3390/jpm14010084.
18- Ko L-C, Gravina N, Berghausen J, Abdo J. Rising Trends in Prostate Cancer Among Asian Men: Global Concerns and Diagnostic Solutions. Cancers. 2025; 17(6):1013. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers17061013
19- Omotoso O, Teibo JO, Atiba FA, Oladimeji T, Paimo OK, Ataya FS, Batiha GE, Alexiou A. Addressing cancer care inequities in sub-Saharan Africa: current challenges and proposed solutions. Int J Equity Health. 2023 Sep 11;22(1):189. doi: 10.1186/s12939-023-01962-y.
20- Gizaw, Z., Astale, T. & Kassie, G.M. What improves access to primary healthcare services in rural communities? A systematic review. BMC Prim. Care 23, 313 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12875-022-01919-0.
Additional Files
Received
Revised
Accepted
Published
Data Availability Statement
All data analyzed in this study are publicly available from the Global Cancer Observatory (GLOBOCAN 2022) and the WHO Global Health Observatory.
No new datasets were generated during the current study.
Additional clarification regarding data sources may be requested from the corresponding author.
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Iraqi Journal of Cancer and Medical Genetics
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
