OBJECTIVE: Cancer of the nervous system is one of the most common types of cancers in the world since the nervous system regulates the functions of the body. Consequently, damage to this system will disrupt the entire body’s functioning. The aim of this study was to investigate the epidemiology and risk factors of neural cancer in the world.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: The present study was conducted on published English studies by June 2018 by searching in the databases PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The search strategy included key words “neurological cancer”, “epidemiology”, “incidence”, “mortality”, “risk factors” without time and place constraints. Studies related to the incidence, mortality, and risk factors for cancer of the nervous system were investigated.

RESULTS: The incidence of the brain tumors has been increasing in all ages in recent decades, indeed, the standardization of age in different countries is between 0.01 and 12.7 in males and 0.01 and 10.7 in women, per 100,000 people. The lowest incidence is in Africa and the highest level is in northern Europe. In addition, the mortality rate of the cancers of the nervous system is estimated at about 3.4 per one hundred thousand in the world.

CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of brain cancer is increasing. As the trend of brain cancer in the world is increasing, preventive and protective measures to reduce the risk factors of this cancer are recommended to reduce the incidence of disease.