The epidemiology of bladder cancer in Russia

Abstract

This study assessed the epidemiology of bladder cancer in Russia. The available publications in Russian were analysed, as well as information from the database of N. N. Blokhin Cancer Research Center, accumulating non-uniform data from different cities and regions of Russia. In 2006 there were 68 129 patients with bladder cancer in Russia, accounting for 2.8% of all cancer cases, with unknown proportions of males and females. In the same year 11 973 new bladder cancer cases were diagnosed, with morphological confirmation in 82.3% of cases. From 1999 to 2004 the incidence of bladder carcinoma increased by 5.3% in males and by 12.5% in females. In 2006 57.4% of patients with newly diagnosed disease were staged as T1 and T2, 26.8% as T3 and 11.4% as T4 bladder cancer cases. The mortality rate of patients with bladder carcinoma increased by 10.9% in males from 1999 to 2004 and did not change in females. In conclusion, over the past 10 years both the prevalence and incidence of bladder carcinoma have increased in Russia. There was a trend towards detecting less advanced cases of the disease, and stages T3 and T4 are diagnosed less frequently today than in 1996. As a result the mortality rate of bladder cancer patients within the first year from diagnosis has decreased, although the overall mortality rate in males has risen.