Global burden and future trends of head and neck cancer: a deep learning-based analysis (1980–2030)

Background: Head and neck cancer (HNC) becomes a vital global health burden. Accurate assessment of the disease burden plays an essential role in setting health priorities and guiding decision-making.Methods: This study explores data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2021 study, involving totally 204 countries during the period from 1980 to 2021. The analysis focuses on age-standardized incidence, mortality, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for HNC. A Transformer-based model, HNCP-T, is used for the prediction of future trends from 2022 to 2030, quantified based on the estimated annual percentage change (EAPC).Results: The global age-standardized incidence rate (ASIR) for HNC has escalated between 1980 and 2021, with men bearing a higher burden than women. In addition, the burden rises with age and exhibits regional disparities, with the greatest impact on low-to-middle sociodemographic index (SDI) regions. Additionally, the model predicts a continued rise in ASIR (EAPC = 0.22), while the age-standardized death rate (ASDR) is shown to decrease more sharply for women (EAPC = -0.92) than men (EAPC = –0.54). The most rapid increase in ASIR is projected for low-to-middle SDI countries, while ASDR and DALY rates are found to decrease in different degrees across regions.Conclusions: The current work offers a detailed analysis of the global burden of HNC based on the GBD 2021 dataset and demonstrates the accuracy of the HNCP-T model in predicting future trends. Significant regional and gender-based differences are found, with incidence rates rising, especially among women and in low-middle SDI regions. Furthermore, the results underscore the value of deep learning models in disease burden prediction, which can outperform traditional methods.