Freddie Bray has a PhD in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and degrees in Statistics from the University of Aberdeen and Medical Statistics from the University of Leicester, UK. He has worked previously at IARC from 1998 to 2005 and at the Cancer Registry of Norway and University of Oslo from 2005 to 2010. His areas of research revolve around the descriptive epidemiology of cancer, including the estimation of the global cancer burden and the analysis of time trends including global predictions of the future scale and profile of cancer linked to human development transitions. He has close to 200 book chapters and articles in journals including The Lancet, The Lancet Oncology, JNCI and Nature Reviews Cancer. In support of the overwhelming need for high-quality cancer surveillance systems given their current paucity and an ever-increasing cancer problem, Dr Bray leads the Global Initiative for Cancer Registration (http://gicr. iarc.fr), an international multi-partner programme designed to ensure a sustainable expansion of the coverage and quality of population-based cancer registries in LMICs through tailored, localized support and advocacy to individual countries.

ABSTRACT
The Global Burden of Cancer

The global cancer burden is increasing and disparities are widening. A potential doubling of the number of new cancer cases is predicted by 2035, with a proportionally greater burden falling on countries undergoing major social and economic change, often ill-equipped at present to respond adequately to the emerging cancer problem.
The presentation will highlight the increasing prominence of cancer in the context of communicable and non-communicable diseases worldwide, and how the changing scale and profile of cancer is linked to levels of human development. That cancer is now the leading cause of death in 50 countries can be seen as part of longstanding and continuing epidemiologic and mortality transitions.
In the wake of the rising cancer burden, the need for long-term investments in prevention and early detection will be stressed, as will IARC’s efforts to globally coordinate a step-change in the coverage and quality of incidence data to enable the planning, monitoring and evaluation of cancer control interventions. The presentation will close by arguing that, in line with the cancer continuum, a broad set of data sources and cancer surveillance statistics are required nationally and regionally in order to measure the impact of actions across the cancer control spectrum.