About one in eight new cancer cases worldwide is linked to an infection, and most of that burden could be reduced with vaccines and treatment already in use, according to an analysis published in The Lancet Oncology.

Researchers estimated that 2.3 million new cancer cases in 2024 were attributable to infections, or 12 percent of all cancers. Helicobacter pylori accounted for the largest share, about 760,000 cases, or 4 percent. Human papillomavirus followed at about 750,000 cases, also 4 percent. Hepatitis B virus was linked to about 360,000 cases, Epstein-Barr virus to about 260,000 and hepatitis C virus to about 160,000.

More than three-quarters of the infection-linked cases were in low- and middle-income countries. Eastern Asia had the largest count, about 990,000 cases, or 42 percent of the global total. Rates were also above the global average in sub-Saharan Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.

Harriet Rumgay of the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer and colleagues used the Global Cancer Observatory's Cancer Today database to estimate cancers tied to 12 agents already classified as carcinogenic. The list covers viruses, one bacterium and three parasites.

"This recent Lancet data is a profound........

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