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Review
. 2020 Apr;23(2):115-128.
doi: 10.4048/jbc.2020.23.e24.

Breast Cancer Statistics in Korea in 2017: Data from a Breast Cancer Registry

Sang Yull Kang  1 , Yoo Seok Kim  2 , Zisun Kim  3 , Hyun Yul Kim  4 , Hee Jeong Kim  5 , Sungmin Park  6 , Soo Youn Bae  7 , Kwang Hyun Yoon  8 , Sae Byul Lee  5 , Se Kyung Lee  9 , Kyu-Won Jung  10 , Jaihong Han  10 , Hyun Jo Youn  1 ; Korean Breast Cancer Society
Affiliations
Review

Breast Cancer Statistics in Korea in 2017: Data from a Breast Cancer Registry

Sang Yull Kang et al. J Breast Cancer. 2020 Apr.

Abstract

This article describes the breast cancer statistics in Korea, including the incidence, type of surgical procedure, stage, and molecular subtype, using the Korean Breast Cancer Society (KBCS) and Korea Central Cancer Registry data. There were a total of 26,534 new breast cancer diagnoses in 2017 in Korea, of which 4,139 were carcinoma in situ cases and 22,395 were invasive cancer cases. The age standardized rate of breast cancer was 75.3 per 100,000 women in 2017 (63.0 of invasive carcinoma and 12.3 of carcinoma in situ), and it has been steadily increasing across all age groups. Breast cancer occurred most commonly in the 40-49 age group. Compared to 2016, breast conserving surgery (BCS) has increased, and 67.4% of patients were treated with BCS in 2017. The proportions of stage 0 and stage I have continued to increase, accounting for 60.7%. The most common subtype of breast cancer was hormone receptor (HR) positive and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) negative type comprising 65.9% of the cases, whereas HR negative and HER2 positive type was the rarest comprising 10.2% of the cases. The 5-year relative survival rate of breast cancer patients had increased by 14.0% from 79.2% in 1993-1995 to 93.2% in 2013-2017. It is essential to actively enter breast cancer data into the KBCS registry to improve our understanding.

Keywords: Breast neoplasms; Epidemiology; Korea; Registries; Statistics.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Number of newly diagnosed Korean female breast cancer patients.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Trends in age-standardized incidence rate of Korean female breast cancer.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Change of age-standardized incidence rate of invasive breast cancer.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Trends in median age of breast cancer.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Changes in the hormone receptor positive breast cancer.
ER = estrogen receptor; PR = progesterone receptor.
Figure 6
Figure 6. Changes in the stage distribution of breast cancer.
Figure 7
Figure 7. Changes in the surgical management of breast cancer.
BCS = breast conserving surgery.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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