Global trends in early-onset and late-onset cancer incidence

Introduction Accumulating evidence suggests that early-onset and late-onset cancers may be etiologically heterogeneous. Thus, we examined the global distribution of incidence rates of early-onset and late-onset cancers by sex. Methods The GLOBOCAN database provides age-standardized incidence rates (ASIRs) of cancers by age and sex across countries worldwide. By defining early-onset and late-onset cancers using the age cut-off of 50 years, we examined global trends in ASIRs of early-onset and late-onset cancers by visualizing data with various graphs. Results The top five countries with the highest ASIRs of early-onset and late-onset cancers were concentrated in Europe in men, whereas the rates were scattered across the continents in women. While ASIRs of early-onset cancers had increased steadily over time, the rates were considerably lower than ASIRs of late-onset cancers in both men and women. By cancer type, thyroid cancer and lung cancer ranked first in ASIRs of early-onset and late-onset cancers, respectively, in men. In women, breast cancer ranked first for both early-onset and late-onset cancers. Colorectal cancer appeared among the top five for both early-onset and late-onset cancers across all sexes. Conclusions Global ASIRs trends of early-onset and late-onset cancers were heterogeneous with respect to sex, geographic distribution, time-trend, and cancer types.