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(HealthDay News) — Overall, cancer deaths in Europe are expected to decline in 2024, but an increase in colorectal cancer (CRC) is expected in younger adults, according to a study published online Jan. 28 in Annals of Oncology.
Claudia Santucci, from the University of Milan, and colleagues predicted cancer mortality figures for 2024 for the European Union, its five most populous countries, and the United Kingdom using cancer death certification and population data from the World Health Organization and Eurostat databases (from 1970 to the most available year).
The researchers predicted 1,270,800 cancer deaths for 2024 in the European Union, corresponding to age-standardized rates of 123.2 per 100,000 men (−6.5 percent versus 2018) and 79.0 per 100,000 women (−4.3 percent). Roughly 6.2 million cancer deaths have been avoided in the European Union and 1.3 million in the United Kingdom since 1988. Unfavorable predicted rates were seen for pancreatic cancer (+1.6 percent in men and +4.0 percent in women) and lung cancer for women (+0.3 percent). Since 2018, there were CRC declines in mortality at all ages in the European Union (−4.8 percent for men and −9.5 percent for women). Adults 70 years and older had the largest predicted declines in CRC mortality. For younger adults (<50 years), CRC mortality showed unfavorable trends overall in Italy and the United Kingdom, for men in Poland and Spain, and for women in Germany.
“Predicted cancer mortality rates remain favorable in the European Union and the United Kingdom, mainly in males due to earlier smoking cessation compared to females, underlining the persisting major role of tobacco on cancer mortality in Europe,” the authors write.
