No less than 433,136 new cases of cancer should be declared in 2023, in France, including 57% in men and 43% in women. Since 1990, this figure has doubled for men and women, all cancer sites combined. Compared to 2018, these data being calculated every five years, we are talking about 51,000 additional cases. These incidence estimates (new cases) were carried out by the National Cancer Institute (INCa), Public Health France (SPF), the French Network of Cancer Registries (Francim) and the Hospices Civils de Lyon. They are published in the Weekly epidemiological bulletin (BEH) of July 4, the same day as the “Panorama of cancers in France”, the INCa report.
In France, cancer remains the leading cause of premature death in men, and the second in women, with 157,400 deaths in total in 2018. These figures are “worrying”according to the health authorities, and justify a “call to action”. The increase is explained, for 78% in men and 57% in women, by the growth and aging of the population. The rest is linked to lifestyles and the environment. The median age at diagnosis is 70 years in men and 68 years in women.
Excluding demographic effects, new cases of cancer increased by 42,686 cases in women and 25,499 in men, from 1990 to 2023, according to these projections. The most common cancers remain those of the breast, prostate, lung, colon and rectum.
For both sexes, skin melanomas, pancreatic and kidney cancers increased from 1990 to 2023. “In humans, the evolutions are rather favorable for the other types of cancer”, noted Dr. Florence Molinié, president of the Francim network. On the other hand, “in women, the evolutions are unfavorable for more locations and even more so for tobacco-related cancers, such as those of the lung and the pancreas”.
The tumors with the best survival rates, around 90%, are those of the prostate, cutaneous melanoma, breast, followed by colorectal cancer and the cervix (63% each). On the other hand, some cancers have poor prognoses with a five-year survival rate of less than 30%: the central nervous system, the lung, the liver, the pancreas.
Lung, the need for screening
This cancer is the second most common in men, and the third in women, in whom its incidence is exploding: + 5% per year since 1990, while it is falling slightly in men. “Within one or two years, lung cancer will have overtaken breast cancer in terms of mortality among women”, warns Sébastien Couraud, pulmonologist and oncologist at the Hospices Civils de Lyon. In 2018, 10,300 deaths were recorded for the first, and 12,100 for the second. According to Sebastien Couraud, “there is no reason to imagine that the number of female cases does not reach that of men. For a long time, this cancer was a very male disease, today it is a disease of both sexes..
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