Global burdens of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in children and young adults and predictions to 2040.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the epidemiological trend for nasopharyngeal carcinoma among children and young adults and the disease burden they caused. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data were collected from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study 2019. A comprehensive analysis was performed, with age-standardized incidence rate (ASIR), age-standardized mortality rate (ASMR), disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) and estimated annual percentage changes (EAPC). And decomposition and frontier analyses were done. Future trends were predicted using Bayesian age-period-cohort model. RESULTS: Globally, there were decreases in the ASIR (EAPC -0.175, 95 % confidence interval [CI] -0.352 to 0.002), ASMR (EAPC -2.681, 95 % CI -2.937 to -2.424), and age-standardized DALYs rates (EAPC -2.643, 95 % CI -2.895 to -2.391). However, the ASIR for males in global (EAPC 0.454, 95 % CI 0.302 to 0.606), Asia (EAPC 0.782, 95 % CI 0.610 to 0.954) and America (EAPC 0.448, 95 % CI 0.379 to 0.517), as well as females in European (EAPC 0.595, 95 % CI 0.479 to 0.712) and American (EAPC 0.369, 95 % CI 0.324 to 0.415), showed an increasing trend. The future ASIR per 100,000 will likely show a slight upward trend in 2020 to 2040 (increased from 0.254 to 0.284), particularly among females (increased from 0.177 to 0.206), and a continued decline in ASMR for both sexes (decreased from 0.070 to 0.061). CONCLUSIONS: Globally, NPC in children and young adults remains a major public health issue, with the global distribution and magnitude of the burden varies markedly, highlighting the need to formulate regional and population-based policies for primary prevention.