Launch of the Global Cancer Observatory (GCO) website

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is pleased to announce the launch of the Global Cancer Observatory (GCO), an interactive web-based platform providing global cancer statistics to inform cancer control and cancer research. The Cancer Today subsite of the GCO is a global data visualization tool that offers innovative ways to examine national estimates of the incidence, mortality, and prevalence of 27 cancer types in 184 countries, based on the GLOBOCAN database. The other subsites – Cancer over Time (which documents trends of cancer over time) and Cancer Tomorrow (which provides cancer predictions for the coming decades) – are in development. Each of these GCO subsites provides user-friendly and interactive tools for analysing and visualizing cancer data based on the most up-to-date statistics available, allowing users to visually explore the changing scale and profile of the global cancer burden.

The global cancer data included in the GCO come from several key projects of IARC’s Section of Cancer Surveillance (CSU), including GLOBOCAN and Cancer Incidence in Five Continents. The GCO website will also link to related activities of CSU, including research that documents global cancer transitions and global efforts to support the collection of high-quality cancer registration data in low- and middle-income countries through the Global Initiative for Cancer Registry Development (GICR) partnership.

Visit the GCO website