Global Disparities in Colorectal Cancer: Unveiling the Present Landscape of Incidence and Mortality Rates, Analyzing Geographical Variances, and Assessing the Human Development Index.

Background: Colorectal cancer poses a major global health threat, with increasing incidence and mortality rates worldwide. This study examined the incidence and mortality rates of colorectal cancer globally in 2020 and explored the relationship with the Human Development Index (HDI).

Material and methods: This research utilizes data from the International Agency for Research on Cancer's (IARC) GLOBOCAN 2020 project, an esteemed source of up-to-date international cancer statistics. Age-standardized incidence rates (ASIR) and age-standardized mortality rates (ASMR) per 100,000 individuals were calculated. The association between ASIR, ASMR, and the HDI was analyzed using Pearson correlation, considering a statistical significance threshold of p < 0.05.

Results: In 2020, a total of 1,931,590 new colorectal cancer cases were recorded globally, with a male predominance of 55.18%. The global colorectal cancer ASIR was 19.5 per 100,000 (23.4 in males, 16.2 in females). Furthermore, there were 935,173 colorectal cancer-related mortality, with males accounting for 55.13%. The overall colorectal cancer ASMR was 9 (11 in males, 7.2 in females). A strong positive correlation emerged between ASIR and ASMR (0.895, p ≤ 0.001), HDI (0.794, p ≤ 0.001), life expectancy (0.724, p ≤ 0.001), education (0.743, p ≤ 0.001), and income (0.706, p ≤ 0.001). Similarly, positive correlations were also found between ASMR and HDI (0.638, p ≤ 0.001), life expectancy (0.569, p ≤ 0.001), education (0.631, p ≤ 0.001), and income (0.512, p ≤ 0.001).

Conclusions: This global analysis highlights rising colorectal cancer incidence and mortality as a major public health threat worldwide. The findings reveal a positive association between a country's development level, as measured by HDI, and colorectal cancer incidence and mortality.