A landmark resolution of the UN General Assembly adopted in New York earlier this month called for action to address the increasing trends in premature deaths from non-communicable diseases worldwide, with a particular focus on developing countries.

The United Nations cancer research body also said that almost 21.4 million new cases of the disease will be diagnosed annually in 2030.

It shows that in 2008 a majority of the 12.7 million new cases of cancer and the 7.6 million cancer deaths worldwide occurred in developing countries.

GLOBOCAN 2008, an online resource for cancer researchers, policy-makers and the media alike, provides worldwide estimates of the numbers of new cases of, and deaths from, cancer for 2008.

Information is provided for the overall burden of cancer and for 27 specific cancer types for almost all countries or territories of the world.

According to GLOBOCAN, an estimated 12.7 million new cancer cases and 7.6 million cancer deaths occurred in 2008.

Dr Christopher Wild, IARC Director, stated: “These figures represent the most accurate assessment of the global cancer burden available at present and can be used in the setting of priorities for cancer control in different regions of the world; they form a vital foundation to future responses to the UN resolution on non-communicable diseases.”

GLOBOCAN 2008 demonstrates that a higher proportion of the cancer burden occurs in less developed regions of the world, both in terms of cancer incidence (56% of new cancer cases in 2008 occur within developing regions) and cancer mortality (63% of cancer deaths).

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 (1.38 million, 18.2% of the total), stomach (0.74 million, 9.7%) and liver cancers (0.69 million, 9.2%).

Cancer is neither rare anywhere in the world, nor confined to high-resource countries. “Striking differences in the patterns of cancer from region to region are observed,” Dr Wild added. “Cervix and liver cancers are much more common in developing regions of the world, whereas prostate and colorectal cancers are more common in developed regions.”

The online resource is easy to use and has facilities to produce maps and other graphics. In addition, a series of fact sheets describe the overall cancer burden within specific areas or countries, as well as the major global patterns for eight common cancers.