Cancer statistics for the year 2020: An overview

By J. Ferlay, M. Colombet, Isabelle Soerjomataram, D. M. Parkin, M. Piñeros, A. Znaor, F. Bray. International Journal of Cancer, 2021

4,841 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Our study briefly reviews the data sources and methods used in compiling the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) GLOBOCAN cancer statistics for the year 2020 and summarises the main results. National estimates were calculated based on the best available data on cancer incidence from population‐based cancer registries (PBCR) and mortality from the World Health Organization mortality database. Cancer incidence and mortality rates for 2020 by sex and age groups were estimated for 38 cancer sites and 185 countries or territories worldwide. There were an estimated 19.3 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI]: 19.0‐19.6 million) new cases of cancer (18.1 million excluding non‐melanoma skin cancer) and almost 10.0 million (95% UI: 9.7‐10.2 million) deaths from cancer (9.9 million excluding non‐melanoma skin cancer) worldwide in 2020. The most commonly diagnosed cancers worldwide were female breast cancer (2.26 million cases), lung (2.21) and prostate cancers (1.41); the most common causes of cancer death were lung (1.79 million deaths), liver (830000) and stomach cancers (769000).

Subfields: Epidemiology, Oncology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cfc23cf7dd91b0f9f898189f58b649f36de3d526

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In Epidemiology

1. Isabelle Soerjomataram
2. J. Vignat
3. F. Bray
4. M. Arbyn

In Oncology

1. Isabelle Soerjomataram
2. M. Laversanne
3. F. Bray
4. J. Vignat
5. M. Arnold
6. M. Arbyn
7. J. Ferlay
8. A. Jemal

Citations in the corpus

• Global patterns and trends in breast cancer incidence and mortality across 185 countries (2025, neutral): “…for primary invasive breast tumors (International Classification of Diseases tenth revision, code C50) at the global, world region and national levels for the 185 countries available from GLOBOCAN, which are based on the best available cancer and vital statistics data for a given country 2,37 .”
• Cancer statistics in China and United States, 2022: profiles, trends, and determinants (2022, methodology): “First, the estimates of cancer burden in 2022 were subject to biases within the GLOBOCAN 2020 reporting system.([12]) Second, we used cancer rates in 2020 as an approximation of rates in 2022, which did not account for any potential changes from 2020 to 2022.”
• Global estimates of incidence and mortality of cervical cancer in 2020: a baseline analysis of the WHO Global Cervical Cancer Elimination Initiative (2022, positive): “10 We used long-term time-series data to assess the temporal change in the rates using high-quality cancer registry data compiled in the successive editions of CI5.”
• Current and future burden of breast cancer: Global statistics for 2020 and 2040 (2022, methodology): “The methods used to derive the 2020 estimates correspond to those used in previous years [7–9]; where applicable, priority is given to short-term predictions and modelled mortality to incidence (M:I) ratios, while validity is dependent on the degree of representativeness and quality of the source in”