Evaluation on the incidence, mortality and tendency of lung cancer in China

OBJECTIVE: To analyze lung cancer epidemiological trends and estimate the lung cancer burden in China. METHODS: The age-specific mortality/incidence ratios in different geographical areas and for both sexes for lung cancer were obtained from the National Cancer Registration database in 2004 and 2005. Cancer crude mortality rates were retrieved from the database of the third national death survey from 2004-2005. Age-specific incidence rates of lung cancer were calculated using mortality and mortality/incidence ratios. The annual percent change was estimated with a log regression model using joinpoint software analyzing pooled lung cancer incidence data from 10 cancer registries from 1988 to 2005. RESULTS: The total estimated new lung cancer cases and deaths in 2005 were 536 407 and 475 768 respectively, the numbers were higher for men than for women, and show an increase of 1.63% annually from 1988 to 2005. However, the trend showed a slowdown of 0.55% after being adjusted for age. CONCLUSIONS: Lung cancer is one of the major health issues in China and the burden is getting serious. Aging is the main cause for the increasing incidence and mortality of lung cancer. Effective cancer prevention and control is imperative. Tobacco control especially should be implemented in nationwide.