Five-year Relative Survival Rate of Larynx Cancer in the USA, Europe and Japan

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

In order to compare survival rates in Japan with those in the USA and European countries, we abstracted the 5-year relative survival rate from several data sources. Survival rates of cancer diagnosed in 1995 – 99 in the USA were abstracted from 18 cancer registries in the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) data (1). Survival rates of cancer diagnosed in 1995 – 99 in the UK and Norway were from four cancer registries (Norway, the UK: Northern Ireland, the UK: Scotland and the UK: Wales) in the European Network of Cancer Registries (ENCR) data (2), and the rate of cancer diagnosed in 2000 – 2002 in Japan was reported from six cancer registries (Miyagi, Yamagata, Niigata, Fukui, Osaka, and Nagasaki) in the Monitoring of Cancer Incidence in Japan (MCIJ) project (3). Here, we compared the cancer survival rate for larynx coded as C32 (ICD10). Figure 1 shows the 5-year relative survival rate of larynx cancer by age category for males; Fig. 2 shows these data for females. In these figures, even if the 5-year relative survival rate was over 100%, the rate was shown as it was. The survival rates for males are in the range from 60 to 80% for all age categories. In Japan, the rates are the highest in almost all age groups. In the USA and the UK (Scotland and Wales), survival rates are the highest in the youngest age category and they decrease with age afterwards. The degree of the decrease in survival rate with age in the USA is a little smaller than those in the UK, and is almost constant especially after 55 – 64 years old. The rates in Japan, Norway, and Northern Ireland show a similar trend. Those in the former two countries are the highest in those aged 45 – 54 years, and that in Northern Ireland is the highest in those aged 55– 64 years. Survival rates in these three countries decrease gently after these peaks. The survival rates for females are in the range from 40 to 100%. Since the incident rates of larynx cancer among females are considerably low (4), the relative survival rates in Japan and UK exceed 100% and the age trends are not smooth. However, it seems to be clear that the survival rate in Japan is higher than those in other countries, and that the survival rate in the advanced age group tends to be lower.