Cancer prevalence data released for the first time in China

On October 9, 2015, Chen Wanqing, director of the National Cancer Center, led a team to release the current cancer data of Chinese residents for the first time in the internationally renowned cancer professional journal Cancer Letters (Cancer Newsletter). The results show that the number of cancer cases diagnosed and still alive in my country within 5 years is about 7.49 million (including 3.68 million male patients and 3.81 million female patients), and the overall 5-year cancer prevalence rate is 556/100000. Compared with the incidence rate, the 5-year prevalence rate can better reflect the overall disease burden. In 2011, the number of cancer survivors and cancer rates in China within 5 years are shown in the following table.

What cancers do these 7.49 million cancer patients suffer from? Which age group do they mainly distribute in?

Number of People with Different Cancers Still Surviving in 5 Years in China (Thousands) and Age Composition Ratio (2011)

The survey shows that among the cancer patients diagnosed with cancer within 5 years and still alive in my country, female breast cancer patients are the most, reaching 1.02 million; followed by colorectal cancer, lung cancer, gastric cancer and esophageal cancer. These 5 common cancers account for 56.1 of the total.%.

How many men and women are cancer patients in this 7.49 million?

Data show that the incidence of cancer in women is lower than that in men, but the 5-year cancer rate in women is higher than that in men. This may be because the five most common tumors in male patients are gastric cancer, lung cancer, colorectal cancer, esophageal cancer and liver cancer, and the 5-year relative survival rate of these cancers is relatively low. The high incidence of cancer in women is breast cancer, colorectal cancer, cervical cancer, thyroid cancer and lung cancer, among which the survival rate of thyroid cancer and breast cancer is very high.

According to the survey, 666 out of every 100000 people in cities in China are diagnosed with cancer in five years and still alive, and 440 in rural areas. The number of patients and cancer rates of different types of cancer in urban and rural areas of China are shown in the table below.

The data show that the 5-year cancer rate in urban areas is significantly higher than that in rural areas, which may be related to the high incidence of cancer in urban areas, good medical conditions, long survival period and high mortality and low survival rate in rural areas.

Although incidence also reflects the cancer burden, the focus is on new cases. As a chronic disease, most patients with cancer have a long survival period, so the survival of cancer patients should also become the focus of attention.

According to reports, the prevalence rate refers to the proportion of the sum of old and new cancer cases in the total population at a certain time. The 5-year cancer prevalence rate is the proportion of the number of cancer cases diagnosed within 5 years that are still alive in the current total population. The data of this study came from 177 tumor registration sites in China, all of which were diagnosed as tumor patients from 2003 to 2005, and the observation deadline was December 31, 2010. Through the incidence data and survival rate data, the prevalence rate is calculated by mathematical model.

I hope that these cancer data can make the public pay more attention to, understand, and then understand cancer, consciously adopt a healthy lifestyle, so that cancer prevention starts with me.

(This information comes from the small orange light network)