Annual Report of the Central Cancer Registry in Korea-1999: Based on Registered Data from 128 Hospitals

The Central Cancer Registry Center in Korea (KCCR) conducted a nationwide hospital-based cancer registry to provide basic statistical data on cancer.

In 1999, 128 hospitals participated in the cancer registry program. All cancer registry data, which was submitted from the participating hospitals by diskettes during the year, were reviewed and analyzed by the committee members who were all Board-qualified clinical oncologists and pathologists. To avoid duplication, every resident registration number was compared by a computer. Cases that had been diagnosed by a histological examination were preferentially chosen for inclusion in this data.

Of 94,003 cases that were registered, there was a total of 8,452 (9.0%) duplication cases which were excluded. Of the remaining 85,551 cases, there were 3,231 cases (3.8%) of carcinoma in situ (morphology code/2) which were excluded. A final total of 82,320 cases were analyzed. Of the analyzed cases, 46,908 (57.0%) were males and 35,412 (43.0%) were females. The leading age groups in the order of their relative frequency were those who were 60~64 years of age (15.3%), followed by the 55~59 age group (13.8%). The six leading primary cancer sites in the order of their relative frequency were stomach (20.7%), followed by the bronchus and lung (12.1%), the liver and intrahepatic bile duct (12.0%), the colorectum (9.9%), the breast (6.4%), and then the uterine cervix (5.0%). In males, the five leading primary cancer sites were the stomach (24.2%), the liver and intrahepatic bile duct (16.3%), the bronchus and lung (16.1%), the colorectum (9.7%), and the urinary bladder (3.3%). In females, the stomach (16.2%) was the most common cancer site, followed by the breast (14.7%), the uterine cervix (11.6%), the colorectum (10.2%), and the thyroid (6.8%). Among the 1,077 cases of childhood malignancies, leukemia (35.4%), CNS tumors (16.7%), malignant lymphomas (7.0%), and sympathetic nervous system tumors (6.9%) were the most common cancer types.

We analyzed and report the KCCR data from 128 nationwide hospitals during 1999.