Ovarian cancer statistics

Ovarian cancer is the 8th most common cancer in women worldwide.

Latest ovarian cancer data

Ovarian cancer is the 8th most commonly occurring cancer in women and the 18th most common cancer overall. There were more than 313,000 new cases of ovarian cancer in 2020.

The 10 countries with the highest rates of ovarian cancer and the highest number of deaths from ovarian cancer in 2020 are shown in the tables below.

ASR = age-standardised rates. These are a summary measure of the rate of disease that a population would have if it had a standard age structure. Standardisation is necessary when comparing populations that differ with respect to age because age has a powerful influence on the risk of dying from cancer.

Ovarian cancer rates

This table shows global ovarian cancer incidence in 2020. Brunei had the highest rate of ovarian cancer in 2020, followed by Samoa.

RankCountryNumberASR/100,000
World313,9596.6
1Brunei4217.4
2Samoa1315.9
3Latvia30315.1
4Poland4,66912.7
5Serbia96712.7
6Fiji5612.4
7Hungary1,18311.9
8Lithuania35211.8
9Ireland48111.7
10Slovakia60011.6

Ovarian cancer deaths

This table shows global ovarian cancer mortality in 2020. Samoa had the highest rate of ovarian cancer mortality in 2020, followed by Fiji.

RankCountryNumberASR/100,000
World207,2524.2
1Samoa1012.0
2Fiji388.5
3Trinidad and Tobago827.7
4Brunei177.4
5Poland3,1317.2
6Lithuania2577.2
7Guam87.2
8Latvia1797.1
9Maldives127.0
10Malaysia1,1756.9

What causes ovarian cancer?

There is evidence that the following are associated with an increased risk of ovarian cancer: not bearing children, early menarche (before the age of 12), late natural menopause (after the age of 55), hormone therapy, smoking and family history.

There is also strong evidence that:

There is some evidence that:

> Read more about what can cause and what can protect against ovarian cancer

Notes

The data on this page comes from the Global Cancer Observatory, owned by the World Health Organization/International Agency for Research on Cancer, and is used with permission. The cancer incidence figures and ASRs were compiled using the data available here (last accessed 23 March 2022). For queries about our cancer statistics please email the Research Interpretation team: ri@wcrf.org.