The number of new cancer cases diagnosed annually in the United States will increase by 45 percent in the next 20 years, U.S. researchers said.

New cancer cases diagnosed annually will increase from 1.6 million in 2010 to 2.3 million in 2030, with a dramatic spike in incidence predicted in the elderly and minority populations, researchers at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center said.

The study, published online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, predicts a 67 percent increase in the number of adults age 65 or older diagnosed with cancer, from 1 million in 2010 to 1.6 million in 2030. In non-white individuals over the same 20-year span, the incidence is expected to increase by 100 percent, from 330,000 to 660,000.

Senior author Dr. Ben Smith said the study underscores cancer's growing stress on the U.S. healthcare system.

"In 2030, 70 percent of all cancers will be diagnosed in the elderly and 28 percent in minorities, and the number of older adults diagnosed with cancer will be the same as the total number of Americans diagnosed with cancer in 2010", Smith says in a statement. "Also alarming is that a number of the types of cancers that are expected to increase, such as liver, stomach and pancreas, still have tremendously high mortality rates."