One in Eight Cancers Linked to Infections: Study
About one in eight cancers worldwide can be traced to infections, according to a major new global study.
The research, by the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Research on Cancer, was published in The Lancet Oncology. It linked 2.3 million of the 19.2 million new cancer cases recorded in 2024 to infections.
Just five pathogens caused most of them. The stomach bacterium Helicobacter pylori was linked to 760,000 cases, mainly stomach cancer. HPV caused 750,000 cases, mostly cervical cancer.
Hepatitis B was tied to 360,000 liver cancers. The Epstein-Barr virus caused 260,000 cases, including nasopharyngeal cancer and Hodgkin lymphoma. Hepatitis C accounted for 160,000 cases.
These infections were connected to more than 20 types of cancer, including stomach, liver, blood and cervical cancers.
The burden is not shared equally. Low- and middle-income countries carried 77 percent of infection-related cancers. East Asia had the most, about 900,000 cases.
Researchers said many of these cancers are preventable through vaccines, infection control and treatment of chronic infections.
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