n recent decades, life expectancy has been increasing. Since age increases the risk of cancer and with further advances in therapeutic options, an increasing number of both cancer diagnoses and cancer survivors in the older population is anticipated.
According to Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) data, life expectancy in Brazil has increased 31.1 years since 1940, reaching 76.6 years in 2019. Currently, 10.2% of the population is 65 years and older, a number expected to reach 25.5% by 2060.1 More than 1.3 million new cancer cases and 666 000 cancer deaths were estimated to have occurred in 2018 in Latin America. According to the Instituto Nacional do Câncer (INCA), the estimated number of cases in Brazil for 2021–2022 will be 625 000 new cases of cancer per year (450 000, excluding cases of non-melanoma skin cancer). The most common tumors are non-melanoma skin cancer, followed by breast, prostate, colorectal, lung, and stomach cancers.2
