The state of cancer care in Russia: epidemiology and survival in patients with the most common and life-threatening solid malignant tumors. Part 1 (population study)

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Solid tumors (solid — firm, non-hematopoietic, i.e. developing not from cells of the hematopoietic system) constitute the majority of malignant tumors. The most important factors for their development are: size, degree of sprouting into surrounding tissues, spread throughout the body in the form of regional and distant metastases. The most common (those having the highest incidence rate) solid malignant tumors in Russia are: lung, stomach and breast cancer. The most life-threatening (those having the worst survival rates) are liver and pancreatic cancer. We paid particular attention to the impact of coronavirus infection pandemic on morbidity, mortality as well as registration quality of patients with solid malignant tumors. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of conducted anticancer measures, we calculated survival rates of patients. AIM: To calculate and evaluate the survival rates of patients with the most common and life-threatening neoplasms in Russia. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We based our study on the data of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, reference books of Moscow Herzen Research Oncological Institute (Russia) and N.N. Petrov National Medical Research Centre of Oncology (Saint Petersburg, Russia), as well as databases of population cancer registries of Saint Petersburg and the Northwestern Federal District of Russia. Data processing was performed using licensed programs MS Excel 2013–2016 and STATISTICA 6.1. Modified Eurocare program was used to calculate survival rate, as well as mathematical, bibliographic and statistical methods. RESULTS: The first part of the study analyzed the main regularities of changes in morbidity, mortality and quality of registration of patients with the most common and life-threatening solid malignant tumors in Russia. The incidence of lung and gastric solid malignant tumors has significantly decreased, while the incidence of breast, liver and pancreas cancer has increased. A significant impact of the coronavirus infection pandemic was revealed, and the main changes in age-specific indicators were traced. CONCLUSION: Upon the background of general decrease in mortality of the Russian population from malignant tumors, an increase was noted for mortality from life-threatening localizations (liver and pancreatic cancer), which is confirmed by calculations of the index of accuracy.