ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1663523
Global burden of cancer in adolescents and young adults aged 10-24 years: a trend analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Third Hospital of Nanchang, Nanchang, China
- 2Nanchong Central Hospital Affiliated to North Sichuan Medical College, Nanchong, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Cancer is an important cause of human death. We aimed to analyze the cancer burden in adolescents and young adults aged 10-24 years at global, regional, and national levels from 1990 to 2021. Methods: We analyzed global burden of disease (GBD) data from 1990 to 2021 to assess the cancer-related incidence, prevalence, death, disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and the corresponding age-standardized rates (ASRs) in adolescents and young adults aged 10-24 years by region, country, sociodemographic index(SDI), etiology and gender stratification. In addition, we evaluated health inequities caused by cancer burden from 1990 to 2021 and used bayesian age-period-cohort (BAPC) model to assess trend of the total cancer burden in adolescents and young adults aged 10-24 years. Results: In 2021, there were 235,249.05(95%UI, 21,7211.16 to 251,1070.1) new cancer cases in adolescents and young adults aged 10-24 years and 94856.02 (95%UI: 85970.2 to 102769.63) deaths worldwide. In addition, there were 13499,913.04 2 (95%UI, 1252506.95 to 1442998.32) prevalent cases and 6,918,657.72 (95%UI: 6,254,353.93 to 7,480202.6) DALYs. Over the past 30 years, the age-standardized incidence rate (ASIR) and the age-standardized prevalence rate (ASPR) of total cancer in adolescents and young adults aged 10-24 years have increased globally, with the most significant increases in regions with high SDI, such as North America and parts of Europe and Asia. The age-standardized death rate(ASDR) and age-standardized DALY rate of total cancer have decreased significantly globally in adolescents and young adults aged 10-24 years. The ASDR and age-standardized DALY rate of total cancer in adolescents and young adults aged 10-24 years were highest in countries with lower SDI, particularly in South America and Africa. Among all regions, Tokelau, Niue, and Afghanistan had the highest ASDR in 2021. Among all cancers, leukemia, brain cancers and malignant neoplasm of bone & articular cartilage were the most common causes of cancer death in adolescents and young adults aged 10-24 years in 2021. Conclusions: Globally, the total cancer burden of adolescents and young adults aged 10-24 years have increased significantly over the past 30 years. Differences in adolescent and young adult cancer burden were evident across regions with different SDI levels.
Keywords: Global burden of disease, Cancer, Adolescents and young adults, sociodemographic index, trend analysis
Received: 10 Jul 2025; Accepted: 20 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Luo, Xiang, Li and Feng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Junjun Yang, 1669169373@qq.com
Yuan Feng, 18781724706@163.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.