Estimates of the worldwide incidence and mortality from 27 cancers in 2008 have been prepared for 182 countries as part of the GLOBOCAN series published by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. In this article, we present the results for 20 world regions, summarizing the global patterns for the eight most common cancers. Overall, an estimated 12.7 million new cancer cases and 7.6 million cancer deaths occur in 2008, with 56% of new cancer cases and 63% of the cancer deaths occurring in the less developed regions of the world. The most commonly diagnosed cancers worldwide are lung (1.61 million, 12.7% of the total), breast (1.38 million, 10.9%) and colorectal cancers (1.23 million, 9.7%). The most common causes of cancer death are lung cancer (1.38 million, 18.2% of the total), stomach cancer (738,000 deaths, 9.7%) and liver cancer (696,000 deaths, 9.2%). Cancer is neither rare anywhere in the world, nor mainly confined to high-resource countries. Striking differences in the patterns of cancer from region to region are observed.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ijc.25516

Estimates of worldwide burden of cancer in 2008: GLOBOCAN 2008.

Estimates of the worldwide incidence, mortality and prevalence of 26 cancers in the year 2002 are now available in the GLOBOCAN series of the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The results are presented here in summary form, including the geographic variation between 20 large "areas" of the world. Overall, there were 10.9 million new cases, 6.7 million deaths, and 24.6 million persons alive with cancer (within three years of diagnosis). The most commonly diagnosed cancers are lung (1.35 million), breast (1.15 million), and colorectal (1 million); the most common causes of cancer death are lung cancer (1.18 million deaths), stomach cancer (700,000 deaths), and liver cancer (598,000 deaths). The most prevalent cancer in the world is breast cancer (4.4 million survivors up to 5 years following diagnosis). There are striking variations in the risk of different cancers by geographic area. Most of the international variation is due to exposure to known or suspected risk factors related to lifestyle or environment, and provides a clear challenge to prevention.

https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.3322/canjclin.55.2.74

Global cancer statistics, 2002.

Cancer incidence and mortality patterns in Europe: Estimates for 40 countries in 2012

Estimates of the cancer incidence and mortality in Europe in 2006

Background The contribution of hereditary factors to the causation of sporadic cancer is unclear. Studies of twins make it possible to estimate the overall contribution of inherited genes to the development of malignant diseases. Methods We combined data on 44,788 pairs of twins listed in the Swedish, Danish, and Finnish twin registries in order to assess the risks of cancer at 28 anatomical sites for the twins of persons with cancer. Statistical modeling was used to estimate the relative importance of heritable and environmental factors in causing cancer at 11 of those sites. Results At least one cancer occurred in 10,803 persons among 9512 pairs of twins. An increased risk was found among the twins of affected persons for stomach, colorectal, lung, breast, and prostate cancer. Statistically significant effects of heritable factors were observed for prostate cancer (42 percent of the risk may be explained by heritable factors; 95 percent confidence interval, 29 to 50 percent), colorectal cancer (35 perce...

Environmental and Heritable Factors in the Causation of Cancer — Analyses of Cohorts of Twins from Sweden, Denmark, and Finland

Excessive incidence of various cancers is a challenging feature of the hereditary-non-polyposis-colorectal-cancer (HNPCC) syndrome. This study estimated the cancer incidences in HNPCC compared with the general population. Individuals in a cohort of 1763 members of 50 genetically diagnosed families were categorized according to their genetic status as mutation carriers, non-carriers, or individuals at 50 or 25% risk of being a carrier. Incidences of cancers in these groups were compared with those in the Finnish population overall. In 360 mutation carriers, standardized incidence ratios (SIR) were significantly increased for colorectal [68; 95% confidence intervals (CI), 56 to 81], endometrial (62; 95% CI, 44 to 86), ovarian (13; 95% CI, 5.3 to 25), gastric (6.9; 95% CI, 3.6 to 12), biliary tract (9.1; 95% CI, 1.1 to 33), uro-epithelial (7.6; 95% CI, 2.5 to 18) and kidney (4.7; 95% CI, 1 to 14) cancers and for central-nervous-system tumours (4.5; 95% CI, 1.2 to 12). The SIR increased with increasing likelihood of being a mutation carrier. The cumulative cancer incidences were 82, 60, 13 and 12% for colorectal, endometrial, gastric and ovarian cancers respectively. For other tumours associated with increased risk, corresponding incidences were below 4%. Interestingly, the incidence of endometrial cancer (60%) exceeded that for colorectal cancer in women (54%). The tumour spectrum associated with germline mutations of DNA-mismatch-repair genes involves 8 or more organ sites, suggesting a need to develop methods to screen for extra-colonic cancer also. Int. J. Cancer 81:214–218, 1999. © 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Cancer risk in mutation carriers of DNA-mismatch-repair genes.

Estimates of cancer incidence and mortality in Europe in 1995

https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(05)00881-4/pdf

Cancer risk in hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer syndrome: later age of onset.

https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(96)00111-4/pdf

Better survival rates in patients with MLH1-associated hereditary colorectal cancer

BACKGROUND: Merkel cell carcinoma is a rare malignancy of the skin. Integration of Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV) DNA to the tumor genome is frequent in these cancers. The clinical consequences of MCPyV infection are unknown. METHODS: We analyzed formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded Merkel cell carcinoma tissue samples from 114 of 207 patients diagnosed with Merkel cell carcinoma in Finland from 1979 to 2004 for the presence of MCPyV DNA with the use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), quantitative PCR, and DNA sequencing and examined associations between tumor MCPyV DNA status and histopathologic factors and survival. The median follow-up time after Merkel cell carcinoma diagnosis for subjects who were alive was 9.9 years (range = 4.9-21.9 years). All P values are two-sided. RESULTS: MCPyV DNA was present in 91 carcinomas (79.8%). Compared with MCPyV DNA-negative cancers, MCPyV DNA-positive cancers were more often located in a limb (40.7% vs 8.7%, P = .015) and less frequent in patients who had regional nodal metastases at diagnosis (6.6% vs 21.7%, P = .043). Patients with MCPyV DNA-positive tumors had better overall survival than those with MCPyV DNA-negative tumors (5-year survival: 45.0% vs 13.0%, respectively; P < .001, two-sided log-rank test). CONCLUSIONS: MCPyV infection is associated with clinical outcomes in patients with Merkel cell carcinoma. These findings lend support to the hypothesis that viral infection is frequently associated with the pathogenesis of Merkel cell carcinoma.

/pdf/clinical-factors-associated-with-merkel-cell-polyomavirus-1s4qmaw6qj.pdf

Risto Sankila

Papers

Cancer risk in mutation carriers of DNA-mismatch-repair genes.

Estimates of cancer incidence and mortality in Europe in 1995

Cancer risk in hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer syndrome: later age of onset.

Better survival rates in patients with MLH1-associated hereditary colorectal cancer

Clinical Factors Associated With Merkel Cell Polyomavirus Infection in Merkel Cell Carcinoma