Abstract
OBJECTIVES:The prostate specific antigen test is widely used as the main method of screening prostate cancer in Korea. Additionally, the use of ultrasound sonography may lead to overdiagnosis of kidney cancer as well as thyroid cancer. This study aimed to highlight epidemiological evidences regarding overdiagnosis of prostate and kidney cancers in Korean.METHODS:The annual trends of national incidence and mortality of prostate and kidney cancers provided by the Korean Statistical Information Service were evaluated.RESULTS:The rate of increase in the incidence of prostate and kidney cancer was 6 and 5 times higher than that of mortality between 2000 and 2011, respectively. Additionally, the age group showing the highest incidence in prostate cancer shifted from 85 years and older to 75-79 years.CONCLUSIONS:This evidence suggests that prostate and kidney cancers are overdiagnosed in Korea. Further research in this area, using national cancer registry databases, should be encouraged to prevent overdiagnosis.
Highlights
Cancer screening, which reduces cancer mortality through early detection, inevitably leads to the problem of overdiagnosis [1]
Overdiagnosis is defined as ‘detection of cancers that would never have been found were it not for the screening test’ [2], and is regarded as a harmful aspect of screening testing because it results in unnecessary overtreatment [3]
In South Korea, concerns have recently been raised regarding the overdiagnosis of thyroid [4] and breast cancers [5]
Summary
Cancer screening, which reduces cancer mortality through early detection, inevitably leads to the problem of overdiagnosis [1]. In the West, there have been claims of overdiagnosis relating to thyroid, breast, prostate, and kidney cancers [1]; in Korea, where testing for prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels in blood is universal, an investigation of overdiagnosis of prostate cancer would provide important evidence for cancer management policies. Thyroid cancer shows the highest incidence among cancers in the Korean population [6], leading to claims of overdiagnosis due to expansion and supply of ultrasound testing devices [4]. One might suspect that kidney cancer is currently being overdiagnosed With respect to these questions, author aimed to investigate the epidemiological evidences on overdiagnosis of prostate and kidney cancers in Koreans
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