Cancer Statistics in Korea: Incidence, Mortality, Survival, and Prevalence in 2019

Abstract

Purpose: The current study provides national cancer statistics and their secular trends in Korea, including incidence, mortality, survival, and prevalence in 2019.

Materials and methods: Incidence, survival, and prevalence rates of cancer were calculated using the Korea National Cancer Incidence Database, from 1999 to 2019, with survival follow-up until December 31, 2020. Deaths from cancer were assessed using causes-of-death data obtained from Statistics Korea.

Results: In 2019, newly diagnosed cancer cases and deaths from cancer were reported as 254,718 (ASR, 275.4 per 100,000) and 81,203 (ASR, 72.2 per 100,000), respectively. For the first time, lung cancer (n=29,960) became the most frequent cancer in Korea, excluding thyroid cancer. The overall cancer incidence rates increased by 3.3% annually from 1999 to 2012, and decreased by 5.3% annually from 2012 to 2015, thereafter, followed by nonsignificant changes. The incidence of thyroid cancer increased again from 2016 (annual percentage change, 6.2%). Cancer mortality rates have been decreasing since 2002, with more rapid decline in recent years (annual decrease of 2.7% from 2002 to 2013; 3.3% from 2013 to 2019). The 5-year relative survival between 2015 and 2019 was 70.7%, which contributed to prevalent cases reaching over 2 million in 2019.

Conclusion: Cancer survival rates have improved over the past decades, but the number of newly diagnosed cancers is still increasing, with some cancers showing only marginal improvement in survival outcomes. As the number of cancer survivors increases, a comprehensive cancer control strategy should be implemented in line with the changing aspects of cancer statistics.

Keywords: Incidence; Korea; Mortality; Neoplasms; Prevalence; Survival.

Fig. 1

The five common sites of cancer incidence by age group and sex for 2019 in Korea. (A) Men. (B) Women. Numbers in parentheses are age-specific incidence rates per 100,000. CNS, central nervous system.

Fig. 2

Age-specific incidence rates of common cancers for 2019 in Korea. (A) Men. (B) Women.

Fig. 3

Annual age-standardized cancer incidence and mortality rates by sex for all sites from 1983 to 2019 in Korea. Age standardization was based on Segi’s world standard population.

Fig. 4

Trends in age-standardized incidences of selected cancers by sex from 1999 to 2019 in Korea. (A) Men. (B) Women. Age standardization was based on Segi’s world standard population.

Fig. 5

Trends in age-standardized mortalities of selected cancers by sex from 1983 to 2019 in Korea. (A) Men. (B) Women. Age standardization was based on Segi’s world standard population. ^a)Cancers of cervix uteri, corpus uteri, and unspecified combined (C53–C55), due to their unclear classifications in the past.

Fig. 6

Five-year relative survival rates by stage at diagnosis and stage distribution of selected cancers by sex in Korea, 2015–2019. (A) Men. (B) Women. Staging according to the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results stage categories. For each cancer type, stage categories do not total 100% because sufficient information was not available to stage all cases. ^a)Includes the gallbladder and other/unspecified parts of the biliary tract.

Fig. 7

Prevalent cases of common cancers by time since cancer diagnosis. Prevalent cases were defined as the number of cancer patients alive on January 1, 2020 among all cancer patients diagnosed between 1999 and 2019.