Juliette Gagliardi
Junior Researcher
Cancer in Europe - Statistics & Facts
Worldwide, the type of cancer with the highest number of cases diagnosed in 2022, was trachea, bronchus, and lung, with almost 2.5 million cases, followed by breast and colorectum cancer. Lung cancer is also the deadliest type of cancer, accounting for 18.7 percent of all deaths from cancer in 2022. Overall, the number of new cancer cases worldwide totaled almost 20 million cases in 2022. This figure is projected to constantly rise and reach about 35.3 million in 2050. Europe is the continent with the third highest prevalence of cancer cases, after Northern America and Oceania, with about 470 cases per 100,000 population as of 2022.
Cancer incidence
In Europe, Denmark was the country with the highest cancer incidence in 2022, with 728.5 cases per 100,000 population, followed by Ireland and the Netherlands. The number of cancer cases diagnosed in the EU in this period was estimated at almost 2.7 million cases (excluding non-melanoma skin cancers). Breast cancer was the type of cancer with the highest number of new cases in the EU, with almost 355,500 estimated new cases in 2022, followed by colorectum and prostate cancer. Among European countries, Cyprus had the highest incidence of breast cancer per 100,000 population.Deaths from cancer
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in Europe after cardiovascular diseases. In 2022, the estimated number of deaths due to cancer in Europe amounted to 1.26 million, with trachea, bronchus, and lung cancer causing the most deaths. Hungary was the European country with the highest mortality rate due to lung cancer both for women and men, with 61.3 and 120 deaths per 100,000 population, respectively. With Germany being the European country with the largest population, it had the sad record of having the highest number of cancer deaths for almost all types of cancers in 2022.
