Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology 32:181-186 (2002)
© 2002 Foundation for Promotion of Cancer Research
Survival Trends of Patients Treated at the National Cancer Center Hospital, Japan, from 1962 to 1994
1 Cancer Information and Epidemiology Division, National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo and 2 Statistics and Survey Section, National Cancer Center Administration Department, Tokyo, Japan
The National Cancer Center (NCC) was established in 1962 in Tokyo as a national institute within the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the national government of Japan. However, there has not been a report on the long-term trends in survival rates at the NCC Hospital. In this paper, we show time trends in 5-year relative survival rates (RSR) at the NCC Hospital from 1962 to 1994.
All patients who were hospitalized at the NCC Hospital and diagnosed as having malignant neoplasms were registered, at each admission, with the hospital registration system managed by the Statistics and Survey Section. The subjects of this study were selected from this hospital cancer registry database. Patients of nationality other than Japanese were excluded from the study, because such patients could not easily be followed up to assess survival. All registered patients were tracked by the Statistics and Survey Section, using residential records of patients kept by municipal governments throughout Japan. Tracking surveys were conducted every year for the patients whose first admission was within 5 years from the date of the survey. The survival time of each patient was calculated from the date of first admission and either the date of death or the latest date at which the patient could be confirmed to be alive using residential records or hospital records of outpatient visits. The 5-year crude survival rate was calculated using the life table method and the 5-year RSR was calculated by adjusting for deaths from causes other than cancer, using the life table of the entire Japanese population (1,2,3).
The number of patients who were hospitalized at the NCC Hospital for the first time for the treatment of malignant neoplasms is shown in Table 1 by gender, 10-year age group and the year of first admission. In total, 48 745 patients, comprising 24 976 males and 23 769 females, were treated for malignant neoplasms during their first hospitalization. Time trends in 5-year relative survival rates are shown for all sites combined and major sites by gender in Table 2. Time trends in RSR for major sites are shown in Fig. 1(a) for males and Fig. 1(b) for females. The RSR for all sites combined showed a substantial improvement for both males and females. In particular, those sites that had poorer survival rates early in the studied time period showed larger improvements.
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FOOTNOTES |
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+ For reprints and all correspondence: Satoshi Kaneko, Cancer Information and Epidemiology Division, National Cancer Center Research Institute, 5–1–1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104–0045, Japan. E-mail: stkaneko@ncc.go.jp
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2 Tanaka H, Tsukuma H, Okuda S, Koyama Y, Kinoshita N, Kitagawa T, et al. Five-year relative survival rates of patients in whom cancer had been diagnosed at the Osaka Medical Center for Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases: comparison with rates obtained from the Osaka Cancer Registry. Jpn J Cancer Clin 1997;43:511–8 (in Japanese).
3 Okamoto N, Murata M, Sasaki J, Tsukuma H, Nakajou T. Five-year relative survival rates of patients with cancer at the Cancer Center Hospital in Japan. Jpn J Cancer Clin 1996;42:1183–8 (in Japanese).
Received August 29, 2001; accepted March 1, 2002
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