Correlations between Mortality-to-Incidence Ratios and Health Care Disparities in Testicular Cancer

Abstract

The mortality-to-incidence ratio (MIR) is associated with the clinical outcomes of different types of cancer as well as the ranking of health care systems. However, the association between MIRs for testicular cancer and health care disparities, including differences in expenditures and health system rankings, has not yet been reported. We used the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (CC) to analyze the correlation between testicular cancer MIRs and both total expenditures on health/gross domestic product (e/GDP) and the World Health Organization’s (WHO) health system rankings. After screening the data for quality and missing information, 57 countries were chosen for analysis. Generally, developed countries and regions had relatively high rates of incidence/mortality, but with a favorable MIR. Among the continents, Europe had the highest incidence rates, whereas the highest MIRs were in Africa. Globally, favorable testicular cancer MIRs were observed in countries with both a high e/GDP and a good WHO ranking (R2 = 0.325, p < 0.001 and CC = −0.568, p < 0.001; R2 = 0.367, p < 0.001 and CC = 0.655, p < 0.001, respectively). In conclusion, the MIR for testicular cancer varies in countries and regions based on both their total health expenditure and their health care system ranking.

Trends of Testicular Cancer Mortality-to-Incidence Ratios in Relation to Health Expenditure: An Ecological Study of 54 Countries

“…Our previous study showed that a favorable MIR for testicular cancer was associated with higher total expenditure on health/GDP [19]. The results response to a previous study which also revealed a strong inverse relationship between HDI and MIR for testicular cancer [29].…”

“…Among the epidemiological models, mortality-to-incidence ratio (MIR) is a feasible method to illustrate the global trends although it cannot replace the role of a cohort survey [12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Our previous study showed that a favorable MIR for testicular cancer was associated with a better World Health Organization ranking and a higher total expenditure on health/GDP [19]. However, updated data enabled an analysis of MIR trends and an investigation of the association between the disparities of countries and the improvement in MIR.…”

Testicular morphometry of rats with Walker 256 tumor supplemented with L-glutamine

“…There has been an increasing number of men diagnosed with cancer, especially testicular cancer, which can trigger infertility, impact their quality of life and cause prolonged toxicity due to drugs employed in the treatment (Chen et al, 2019;Punab et al, 2017). However, it has been shown that this type of cancer is one of the most curable malignancies, which reinforces the need for studies to understand the progression of the disease in search for early therapy (Adra and Einhorn, 2017;Howlader et al, 2019;Smith et al, 2018).…”

Improving Quality Indicator of Melanoma Management – Change of Melanoma Mortality-to-Incidence Rate Ratio Based on a Hungarian Nationwide Retrospective Study

“…Mortalityto-incidence ratios (MIR) have been used for more than 40 years, first as a measure of completeness of cancer registries (13,14). Where quality of data is good, MIR can be a valid proxy indicator for survival estimates (calculated as 1-MIR) (14)(15)(16), and has already been used in multiple cancer types (17)(18)(19)(20)(21), including melanoma (22)(23)(24). Despite this, the use of MIR for survival estimation is mathematically questionable as the calculation does not use the same population for incidence and mortality (13).…”

“…Studies on various types of cancer in OECD countries also discussed the potential of MIR as a measure for evaluation the success of cancer surveillance and screening (16,17,26). Studies generally found reverse correlation between healthrelated expenditure and MIR or development and MIR in multiple cancer types (18,20,23). The GLOBOCAN database of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) contains the best available evidence on age-standardized cancerspecific incidence and mortality.…”