Long-term survival and conditional survival of cancer patients in Japan using population-based cancer registry data

Abstract

Although we usually report 5-year cancer survival using population-based cancer registry data, nowadays many cancer patients survive longer and need to be followed-up for more than 5 years. Long-term cancer survival figures are scarce in Japan. Here we report 10-year cancer survival and conditional survival using an established statistical approach. We received data on 1,387,489 cancer cases from six prefectural population-based cancer registries in Japan, diagnosed between 1993 and 2009 and followed-up for at least 5 years. We estimated the 10-year relative survival of patients who were followed-up between 2002 and 2006 using period analysis. Using this 10-year survival, we also calculated the conditional 5-year survival for cancer survivors who lived for some years after diagnosis. We reported 10-year survival and conditional survival of 23 types of cancer for 15-99-year-old patients and four types of cancer for children (0-14 years old) and adolescent and young adults (15-29 years old) patients by sex. Variation in 10-year cancer survival by site was wide, from 5% for pancreatic cancer to 95% for female thyroid cancer. Approximately 70-80% of children and adolescent and young adult cancer patients survived for more than 10 years. Conditional 5-year survival for most cancer sites increased according to years, whereas those for liver cancer and multiple myeloma did not increase. We reported 10-year cancer survival and conditional survival using population-based cancer registries in Japan. It is important for patients and clinicians to report these relevant figures using population-based data.

Keywords: Cancer; cancer registry; conditional survival; period analysis; survival.

Fig 1

Diagnosed and followed-up years of submitted patient data from six Japanese prefectural cancer registries. Bold black figures indicate data from all six prefectures; gray figures mean a limited number of registries have provided data. The solid gray line box shows the data used to calculate 10-year survival for patients diagnosed between 1993 and 1997 using conventional methods (cohort approach). The solid black line box shows the data used to calculate 10-year survival for patients diagnosed between 1998 and 2001 using the cohort approach. The dashed gray line box shows the data to calculate 5-year survival for patients diagnosed between 2002 and 2006 using the cohort approach. The dashed black line box shows the data for period approach we applied in this study.

Fig 2

Conditional 5-year survival for male (a) and female (b) cancer patients in Japan followed-up in 2002–2006. (c) Conditional 5-year survival for childhood and adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer patients followed-up in 2002–2006. ALL, acute lymphoblastic leukemia; CNS, central nervous system; ML, malignant lymphoma; MM, multiple myeloma.