Cancer Screening Status in Korea, 2011: Results from the Korean National Cancer Screening Survey

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the use of screening for stomach, liver, colorectal, breast, and cervical cancers, which are included in the Korean National Cancer Screening Programme. In 2011 the National Cancer Centre in Korea conducted a nationwide, population-based, cross-sectional interview survey using multi-stage random sampling. Participants included 4,100 cancer-free men 40 years and over of age and women over 30 years of age. The lifetime screening rates for stomach, liver, colorectal, breast, and cervical cancers were 76.2%, 54.3%, 56.1%, 79.0%, and, 74.8%, respectively. The rates of recommended screening for stomach, liver, colorectal, breast, and cervical cancers were 64.6%, 22.9%, 35.3%, 60.4%, and 62.4%, respectively. More than 70% of all screening was attributed to organised cancer screening programmes. The main reason given for non attendance was 'no symptoms'. A greater effort is needed to increase screening rates, especially for liver and colorectal cancers.

Breast Cancer Screening Barriers from the Womans Perspective: a Meta-synthesis

“…Lack of access was also one of the most important barriers to breast cancer screening from women's point of view which consists of financial, geographical, and cultural access problems pointed out by most of the studies (Noroozi and Tahmasebi 2011;Park et al, 2011;Roder et al, 2013). Therefore making practical attempts to reduce screening costs and to insure these services, to increase women's geographical access by expanding centers and clinics providing these services in far and deprived locations and to provide these services by the primary care providers, and also to increase cultural access by service being provided by female practitioners or other female service providers, providing a private place in which the clients could feel convenience and safety and also attempts to produce culture of using these services, are recommended.…”

The Efficacy of Mammography Boot Camp to Improve the Performance of Radiologists

“…Since 1999, the National Cancer Screening Program (NCSP) in Korea has recommended biannual screening mammograms for females 40 years of age or older (1, 2). However, the outcome of breast cancer screening has been poor, showing the worst results among the five cancers included in the NCSP (3, 4).…”

3R Variant of Thymidylate Synthase 5'-untranslated Enhanced Region Contributes to Colorectal Cancer Risk: A Meta-analysis

“…As a complex and multifactorial process, the colorectal carcinogenesis is still not fully understood. Epidemiological studies have revealed that smoking, diets and other environmental risk factors play important roles in the development of CRC (Chan and Giovannucci, 2010;Park et al, 2011). However, only a small proportion of individuals exposed to the known risk factors develop CRC, while many cases develop CRC among individuals without those risk factors, which suggest genetic factors also play an important role in the colorectal carcinogenesis (Markowitz and Bertagnolli,metabolism, and thymidylate synthase (TYMS) catalyzes the conversion of deoxyuridine monophosphate (dUMP) to deoxythymidine monophosphate (dTMP) in the DNA synthesis by using 5, 10-methylenetetrahydrofolate as a methyl donor (Costi et al, 2005).…”