Cancer care faces a shortage of 100mn workers by 2050, study says

World faces cancer workforce crisis with 100m staff shortfall, report warns

A Lancet report presented at ASCO 2026 projects a global shortfall of 100 million cancer care workers by 2050, against a caseload rising from 20 million to 35.3 million diagnoses per year. For health-tech and digital health investors, the report's explicit call for AI and digital health adoption to enable task-shifting signals a structural demand driver for diagnostic AI, remote monitoring, and workforce augmentation tools over the next two decades.