Survival trends for primary liver cancer, 1995–2009: analysis of individual data for 578,740 patients from 187 population-based registries in 36 countries (CONCORD-2)

Abstract

Background: Primary liver cancer is the fifth most common cancer worldwide , and the second most common cause of death from cancer, with an estimated 841,100 new cases and 781,500 deaths each year. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) accounts for 60-80% of cases, and cholangiocarcinoma 10-40%. We examined global trends in survival for both these sub-types of liver cancer, by country, age, sex and calendar period. Methods: Data on 1,005,032 adults (aged 15-99 years) diagnosed with a primary, invasive malignant neoplasm of the liver or intrahepatic bile ducts between 1995 and 2009 were provided by 243 populationbased cancer registries in 60 countries. Analysis was restricted to patients for whom the diagnosis of a primary malignancy had been confirmed by histological or cytological examination, or assignation of a specific morphology code, and to registries from which survival estimates were considered reliable. We estimated both five-year net survival and conditional five-year net survival, for patients who survived to the first anniversary of diagnosis. Funnel plots were used to examine international variation in survival and variation by age and morphology. Results: Data on 578,740 patients from 187 registries in 36 countries were included after quality control. For patients diagnosed during 2004-2009, the pooled estimate of age-standardised five-year net survival for liver cancer was 14.8% (range, 4.4-23.7%), higher than for patients diagnosed during 1995-2000 (11.0%). Survival for patients diagnosed with HCC during 2004-2009 (pooled estimate 17.4%, range 7.7-25.5%) was higher than for those with cholangiocarcinoma (8.4%, range 3.7-16.0%). Survival for patients diagnosed during 2004-2009 was higher in Canada, Italy, Japan, Taiwan and Korea (21.2-23.7%) than the pooled

Comparison of liver cancer incidence and survival by subtypes across seven high‐income countries

“…Recent international studies have focussed survival comparisons on those cases that have morphological verification, or those with specific histological codes. 14 However, there is no consensus on the best approach and there are potential differences in coding practices across registries.…”

Machines with vision for intraoperative guidance during gastrointestinal cancer surgery

“…The most common sites of GI cancers include colorectal (10.0% of all diagnosed cancers), gastric (5.6%), liver (4.7%), esophageal (3.1%), and pancreatic (2.6%) cancers, respectively representing the second (9.4% of all cancer-related deaths), fourth (7.7%), third (8.3%), sixth (5.5%), and seventh (4.7%) most common cause of cancer-related deaths (2). Whereas, the 5-year survival of each of these cancers has been steadily improving over the years (albeit marginally in the case of pancreatic and esophageal cancers), clinical uncertainty has meant that a significant number of these cancers continue to face complications with surgical management (3)(4)(5)(6)(7). Indeed, with intraoperative complication rates reaching 40% in some types of gastric cancer resections, patient morbidity and mortality can be significant, especially in oncology-related surgeries (8).…”

Does access to care play a role in liver cancer survival? The ten-year (2006–2015) experience from a population-based cancer registry in Southern Italy

“…A more detailed analysis on patients diagnosed during 1995–2009 in 28 countries found a wide variation in 5-year conditional survival (the probability of surviving up to 5 years from diagnosis among patients who had survived to the first anniversary of diagnosis) for hepatocellular carcinomas (25–52%). This partially reflects variation in the proportion of patients diagnosed at an advanced stage [ 15 ] whereas a poor prognosis for liver cancer implies that most patients are diagnosed when they are inoperable.…”