Premature mortality due to cancer in Japan, 1995 and 2005

Abstract

To better understand premature mortality due to cancer, we estimated years of life lost (YLL) and average years of life lost (AYLL) due to cancer for the years 1995 and 2005, based on data from the Vital Statistic of Japan. In men, we identified a total of 159,623 cancer deaths in 1995 and 196,603 Results showed that cancer of the stomach, colorectum, liver and lung were the most frequent cancers in both sexes in both 1995 and 2005 and responsible for a remarkable number of YLL. Further, AYLL was greatest for brain cancer and leukemia in both sexes and for sex-related cancers in women, namely breast, cervix and ovarian cancer.Cancer accounts for a major part of the total burden of disease worldwide. The number of people newly diagnosed with cancer each year totals in the millions, large numbers of whom died from it. 1 In Japan, cancer overtook stroke to become the leading cause of death in the early 1980s. As cancer incidence increases with age, the absolute cancer burden in Japan is expected to worsen in line with the aging of the Japanese population.Conventional methods of quantifying the burden of cancer have relied largely on the analysis of incidence and mortality rates. A more recent methodology, however, focuses on the measurement of premature death, which is a death occurring before the averaged life expectancy. The 2 measures of premature death are ''years of life lost'' (YLL) and ''average years of life lost'' (AYLL) 2,3 : the former is the number of years a death occurred earlier than it would have occurred in the absence of cancer, whereas the latter is the average of the differences between the actual ages at death of those who died of cancer and the expected age at death of those persons. Although high mortality may also be linked to an increase in premature death, mortality rates alone do not directly reflect the issues of premature death.We recently estimated YLL as well as AYLL due to cancer, but only among participants of a cohort study in Japan. 4 Here, to better understand premature mortality due to cancer in Japan as a whole, we estimated YLL and AYLL due to cancer for the years 1995 and 2005 by examining nationwide data on cancer deaths in Japan according to the respective life tables. Material and Methods Study populationWe obtained the mortality data for 5-year age groups from the Vital Statistic of Japan for the years 1995 and 2005, a 10-year interval period. 5,6 Causes of death were coded according to the International Classification of Diseases and Injuries (ICD), 10th Revision (ICD-10). This mortality data provide yearly number of deaths for all causes in the whole of Japan. The present analyses were restricted to cancer deaths (codes ranged from C00 to C97 in the ICD-10 Revision). Life tables for JapanIn Japan, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare reports complete life tables every 5 years. The tables show functional data by age for death rate, survival rate and remaining life expectancy. In the present analyses, we used the complete life tables for 1995 and 2005 7,8

Premature Mortality Due to Malignancies of the Central Nervous System in Canada, 1980–2010

“…Consistent with those in previous publications [8, 9, 17, 18], the findings of the current analysis show that, on average, people with CNS cancer lost as many as 23 years of life among men and 27 years among women in 1980. Although their lifespan was prolonged in recent years, patients with CNS cancers still lost 21 years of life among men and 23 years among women in 2010.…”

“…Furthermore, the most commonly reported statistics, such as incidence and mortality rates, may not fully reflect the burden of loss due to mortality. We were recently inspired by “life lost” measures, proposed in the Global Burden of Disease project [3-7], that described the impact of premature mortality among the Japanese population [8]. We observed that Japanese patients with CNS cancers lost the largest proportion of their lifespan relative to other cancer patients [8].…”

“…We were recently inspired by “life lost” measures, proposed in the Global Burden of Disease project [3-7], that described the impact of premature mortality among the Japanese population [8]. We observed that Japanese patients with CNS cancers lost the largest proportion of their lifespan relative to other cancer patients [8]. Recent studies [9, 10] conducted in the US also described the large impact that brain cancer deaths has on the ­American population; however, these studies assessed only a few years of data and to date there are no long-term analyses on the secular trend of premature mortality for this condition.…”

The Decrease in Average Years of Life Lost Due to Breast Cancer in Japan during the Period from 1995 to 2006

“…In recent studies in Japan, AYLL demonstrated a negative effect of breast cancer on lifespan in individual patients compared with other cancers. Stomach, liver and lung cancer in women, for instance, had AYLL of about 15-16 years, but breast cancer had AYLL of about 25 years (Pham et al 2009(Pham et al , 2010. The results from our study also showed that breast cancer patients in Japan have, however, benefited from a decline in AYLL, as indicated by a 3.6-year decrease in this variable at the end of the study period.…”

Demographic Characteristics and its Impact on Health Policy in Japan

“…Furthermore, the low utilization rate of cancer screening is another important problem for the Japanese health policy. For example, the rates of 2007 were 32.5%, 27.5%, for stomach and colon (male), and 25.3%, 22.7%, 20.3% 8) . Both local and central government are making their effort to increase the utilization rate; i.e., distribution of free ticket for cancer screening, cancer screening program for weekend and holidays, PR activities via mass medias.…”