Global trends in incidence, death, burden and risk factors of early-onset cancer from 1990 to 2019

A study explored the global burden of early-onset cancer based on the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2019 study for 29 cancers worldwide.
The study found that global incidence of early-onset cancer increased by 79.1% and the number of early-onset cancer deaths increased by 27.7% between 1990 and 2019. Early-onset breast, tracheal, bronchus and lung, stomach and colorectal cancers showed the highest mortality and DALYs in 2019. Globally, the incidence rates of early-onset nasopharyngeal and prostate cancer showed the fastest increasing trend, whereas early-onset liver cancer showed the sharpest decrease. Early-onset colorectal cancers had high DALYs within the top five ranking for both men and women. High-middle and middle Sociodemographic Index (SDI) regions had the highest burden of early-onset cancer. The morbidity of early-onset cancer increased with the SDI, and the mortality rate decreased considerably when SDI increased from 0.7 to 1. The projections indicated that the global number of incidence and deaths of early-onset cancer would increase by 31% and 21% in 2030, respectively. Dietary risk factors (diet high in red meat, low in fruits, high in sodium and low in milk, etc), alcohol consumption and tobacco use are the main risk factors underlying early-onset cancers.
The authors conclude that early-onset cancer morbidity continues to increase worldwide with notable variances in mortality and DALYs between areas, countries, sex and cancer types. Encouraging a healthy lifestyle could reduce early-onset cancer disease burden.
Source: Zhao J, Xu L, Sun J, et al. Global trends in incidence, death, burden and risk factors of early- onset cancer from 1990 to 2019. BMJ Oncology 2023;2:e000049. doi.org/10.1136/bmjonc-2023-000049
Writing for the science media centre, Prof Dorothy Bennett, Professor of Cell Biology, St George’s, University of London (SGUL), commented: “This is a global report on “early-onset” cancer, meaning cancer diagnosed in people between 14 and 45 years old.. The press release mentions a “striking 79% increase” in new cases of early-onset cancer over the period. This refers to total numbers rather than rates (or risk) of cancer per person. The world human population increased by 46% between 1990 and 2019 (Worldometer data), which explains part of the increase in total case numbers, though I don’t know the exact % increase for the 14-45 age group.
“Some changes in some countries may also be due to changes (usually improvements) in reporting, as they note, potentially explaining another part of the increase in reported numbers. The increase in numbers of cancer deaths in this age group was notably lower than for diagnoses, namely 28%, which is below the increases in total population and case numbers, indicating a fall in the average cancer death rate in this group”.