Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 Indicates That Smoking Gradually Becomes a Key Driver of the Burden of Pancreatic Cancer in Developing Regions

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer (PC) remains a high mortality disease worldwide with a 5-year survival rate of less than 10%. Economic and living standard improvements in developing countries have significantly raised behavioral and metabolic risk factors of PC-related burden over the past decades. However, previous studies have not fully clarified how these risk factors contribute to PC over time. By employing the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2019, we examined PC-associated burden and its related risk factors from 1990 to 2019 in the present paper. During that time frame, the number of PC death cases significantly increased throughout the world; and developing regions have a higher trend compared to developed regions. Smoking, high fasting plasma glucose (FPG), as well as high body mass index (BMI) have become significant drivers of PC burden, which has also contributed to the rise in PC-related deaths in developing countries. Meanwhile, the rapid increase in premature deaths in developing countries should draw the public’s attention. It is therefore necessary to intervene on the PC-associated risk factors to significantly reduce death cases and burden. The renewal of PC burden analysis in this paper at multiple levels in GBD database is very beneficial for each country to determine individual policies to control the increasing trend of this disease.