Cancer Incidence Continues to Rise, Especially in Women Younger Than 65

Of note, lung cancer incidence was higher among women younger than 65 compared with their male counterparts in 2021.

Although cancer mortality has declined through 2022 and cancer incidence has declined in men, disease incidence has risen in women, particularly among those younger than 65 years, according to a review of population-based cancer occurrence and outcomes published by the American Cancer Society.

Data collected by central cancer registries reveal that cancer incidences in women ages 50 to 64 years have already surpassed those of men, with statistical equivalence observed in 2021 (832.5 vs. 830.6 per 100,000, respectively). Additionally, the incidence rate for women younger than 50 years was 82% higher than for men in the same age category in 2021 (141.1 vs. 77.4 per 100,000 respectively), an increase from 2002, where it was 51% higher for women. Furthermore, lung incidence was higher in women younger than 65 years than men in 2021 (15.7 vs 15.4 per 100,000, respectively; P = .03) for the first time since the pre-tobacco epidemic era.

Although cancer incidence rates in men erratically rose in the early 1990s, rates decreased sharply from 2007 to 2013 before levelling off and remaining stable from 2013 to 2021. Additionally, cancer incidence in women has steadily climbed, starting at 361.2 per 100,000 in 1978 to 443.2 in 2021, a 23% overall increase. Declining incidence trends in men and increasing trends in women narrowed the male-to-female ratio from the 1992 peak of 1.6 to 1.1 in 2021.

“Progress is lagging in cancer prevention. Incidence continues to increase for 6 of the top 10 cancers (breast, prostate, melanoma, uterine corpus, pancreas, and colorectal cancer [in patients younger than 65]), 2 of which primarily affect women,” Rebecca L. Siegel, MPH, senior scientific director of Cancer Surveillance Research at the American Cancer Society, wrote in the publication with study coinvestigators. “Consequently, the cancer burden is shifting from older to younger adults and from men to women. Middle-aged women now have slightly higher cancer risk than their male counterparts, and young women are almost twice as likely to be diagnosed as young men.”

Population-based cancer incidence data was collected by the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program, as well as the CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR). Additionally, the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR) compiled and reported incidence data for registries that participate in the SEER program and/or NPCR, with data accounting for nearly 100% coverage of the US population. These data were the source for the projected new cancer cases in 2025, including contemporary incidence trends, cross-sectional incidence rates, and stage distribution.

In total, 2025 estimates predict that approximately 2,041,910 new cancer diagnoses will be observed, equivalent to about 5600 cases daily. Furthermore, 988,660 of these diagnoses are projected to be from women, which include a projected 115,970 lung cancer diagnoses, 59,080 new cases of ductal carcinoma in situ, and 107,240 new cases of melanoma in situ of the skin.

Additionally, the lifetime probability of being diagnosed with invasive cancer was slightly higher for men than women (39.9% vs 39.0%), but for women younger than 50 years, there was a higher probability reported (3.4% for men and 5.9% for women). Furthermore, there was only a slightly higher lifetime probability of lung or bronchus cancer diagnosis for men than for women (5.8% vs 5.6%), but similar probabilities among those younger than 50 (0.1% vs 0.1%) or 50 to 64 years of age (1.1% vs 1.1%).

Of note, although overall lung cancer incidence has declined from 2012 to 2021 by 3% per year in men and 1.4% in women, a later and slower decrease was observed in women due to them taking up smoking later and being slower to quit.

Regarding other findings in the review, cancer incidence and mortality was found to be highest among American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) people overall and women, AIAN individuals had the highest cancer mortality rate of any group for cancers in the colorectum, kidney, liver, lung, stomach and cervix, while Black men had the highest prostate cancer mortality risk and Black women had the highest breast and uterine corpus cancer mortality risks.

In 2025, investigators estimate that 9550 children—aged birth to 14 years—and 5140 adolescents—aged 15 to 19 years—will have a cancer diagnosis; 1050 and 600 are estimated to die from their disease, respectively. Invasive cancer incidence has declined from 2015 to 2021 by 0.8% per year in children, although overall incidence has climbed by 0.7% per year in adolescents, which was mainly due to rises in lymphoid leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma diagnoses.

Reference

Siegel RL, Kratzer TB, Giaquinto AN, Sung H, Jemal A. Cancer statistics, 2025. CA Cancer J Clin. Published online January 16, 2025. doi:10.3322/caac.21871