Comparison of Time Trends in Stomach Cancer Mortality (1990-2006) in the World, from the WHO Mortality Database

Mortality data, abstracted from the World Health Organization (WHO) database, are available for various countries. We used stomach cancer mortality (ICD-10: C16) in 11 countries during the period 1990–2006. These countries were Japan, China (Hong Kong) and the Republic of Korea (Asian countries); the United States of America (USA); Australia; the Russian Federation, United Kingdom (UK), Italy, Spain, France and Germany (European countries). For the USA, Spain and France, data were available only for 1990–2005; and for Australia and Italy, for 1990–2003. The world population was used for age standardization. Age-standardized rates for stomach cancer mortality (ICD-10: C16) in the 11 selected countries between 1990 and 2006 are shown for males (Fig. 1) and for females (Fig. 2). ... Stomach cancer mortality rates were twice as high for males as for females (note that Figs 1 and 2 use different vertical scales). For both males and females, mortality rates in all countries studied declined through the observation period, and especially in Republic of Korea, Japan and Russian Federation, they drastically decreased. Mortality rates in the above three countries were higher than in the other countries throughout the observation period. An unstable trend was observed in the Republic of Korea over the first 5 years. The lowest mortality rates among the countries studied were in the USA and those in Australia and France were also relatively low. The trends over time were similar in males and females. The order of age-standardized rates was also similar for the 11 countries studied in both males and females. However, among the European countries, in males, Russian Federation was the country with the highest rates, followed for Italy with Spain and Germany having similar rates. Among females, Russian Federation again has the highest rates, with Italy and Germany jointly the second highest and Spain next. In Europe, the lowest mortality rates were observed in France followed by those in the UK, and the UK rate decreased more rapidly and became similar to that in France around the year 2005.