Cancer’s deadly sweep is getting wider. Its tag of being "a disease of the affluent" and of "rich countries" is being shredded, with the burden rising among the most disadvantaged countries and communities, and early in life. Every fifth person in the world will be inflicted by cancer in their lifetime. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) say in a new report that 92 per cent of the global population will either be diagnosed with cancer or have a close family member do so. Increasingly, new modifiable risks including tobacco, alcohol, unhealthy diets, high body mass index, air pollution and harmful workplace or environmental exposures, are driving the cancer epidemic. Studies attribute 41 per cent of cancer deaths in 2024 to such risks. Like cancer cells, the risk of the disease is increasing geometrically.
In 2024, more than 20.6 million people were diagnosed with cancer worldwide, say WHO and IARC. It killed 9.7 million people, nearly half in the age group of 30-69 years. Cancer also accounted for 16.5 per cent of all global deaths, making it the second-leading cause of death worldwide after cardiovascular disease. Childhood cancer is on a steep ascent: around 400,000 children and adolescents aged up to 19 years develop cancer every year. Among men, the most common cancer was of the lung, accounting for some 1.6 million new cases, followed by prostate cancer with 1.5 million cases. Among women, breast cancer led the burden, with 2.4 million new diagnoses, while lung cancer ranked second with around 1 million cases. Colorectal cancer was the third most common cancer in both groups, with an estimated 1.1 million new cases among men and 900,000 among women.
Unequal capacity for management makes the fight against cancer an upheaval task. The WHO-IARC report says while advances in prevention, diagnosis and treatment have improved outcomes in many countries, “survival is increasingly shaped by geography and access to healthcare”. High-income countries currently report higher cancer incidence, partly because cancers are detected earlier and populations live longer. They also see better survival rates because patients are more likely to receive timely diagnosis and treatment. In contrast, people in low- and middle-income countries die disproportionately from cancers treatable in wealthier nations, because access to essential services such as pathology, imaging, surgery, radiotherapy and medicines re-mains limited. For instance, over 85 per cent of women diagnosed with breast cancer survive for at least five years in high-income countries, compared with fewer than 45 per cent in low-income countries. Children with lymphoid leukaemia have survival rates of around 93 per cent in Europe, but only 19 per cent in parts of Africa.
Unequal access to diagnosis is a key determinant for this contrast. Nearly 47 per cent of the world’s population has little or no access to basic diagnostic services like pathology and imaging. In sub-Saharan Africa, there is approximately one pathologist for every one million people, 50 times lower than in high-income countries. Access to cancer treatment is also highly unequal. For example, lung cancer surgery is included in public health benefit packages in 96 per cent of high-income countries, compared with only 19 per cent in low-income countries.
The inequalities will further widen. While cancer cases are expected to increase by nearly 67 per cent worldwide by 2050, low-income countries are projected to face a staggering 133 per cent rise. Future global cancer response will depend not only on medical advances but also on equal access to prevention, early diagnosis and treatment. Without addressing the gaps, where a person lives will continue to play a decisive role in whether cancer becomes a survivable disease or a life-threatening diagnosis.
This article was originally published in the August 1-15, 2026 print edition of Down To Earth