Prediction of Cancer Incidence and Mortality in Korea, 2017

This study aimed to report on cancer incidence and mortality for the year 2017 in Korea in order to estimate the nation's current cancer burden.

Cancer incidence data from 1999 to 2014 were obtained from the Korea National Cancer Incidence Database, and cancer mortality data from 1993 to 2015 were acquired from Statistics Korea. Cancer incidence and mortality were projected by fitting a linear regression model to observe age-specific cancer rates against observed years, and then multiplying the projected age-specific rates by the age-specific population. The Joinpoint regression model was used to determine at which year the linear trend changed significantly; we only used data of the latest trend.

A total of 221,143 new cancer cases and 80,268 cancer deaths are expected to occur in Korea in 2017. The most common cancer sites are the colorectum, stomach, lung, thyroid, and breast. These five cancers represent half of the overall burden of cancer in Korea. For mortality, the most common sites are the lung, liver, colorectal, stomach, and pancreas.

The incidence rate of all cancers in Korea appears to have decreased mainly because of a decrease in thyroid cancer. These up-to-date estimates of the cancer burden in Korea could be an important resource for planning and evaluation of cancer-control programs.