7 out of 10 Cancer Patients Survive More Than 5 Years... 6.6%p Increase in 10 Years

Ministry of Health and Welfare and National Cancer Center Announce '2021 National Cancer Registration Statistics'

Among patients diagnosed with cancer in Korea, it was revealed that 7 out of 10 survived for more than 5 years.

According to the 2021 National Cancer Registry Statistics announced on the 28th by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the National Cancer Center, the 5-year relative survival rate of cancer patients diagnosed in the past 5 years was 72.1%. The 5-year relative survival rate of cancer patients has continuously increased, rising by 6.6 percentage points compared to about 10 years ago (2006?2010), when the relative survival rate was 65.5%.

In particular, as of 2021, the number of cancer patients who survived more than 5 years after diagnosis was 1,479,536, accounting for more than half (60.8%) of all cancer survivors, an increase of 111,396 from the previous year (1,368,140).

The number of newly diagnosed cancer cases in 2021 was 277,523, an increase of 27,002 (10.8%) compared to 2020. This is analyzed to be due to the increase in medical utilization such as cancer screening, which had decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the expansion of the registration target range due to changes in cancer registration guidelines.

The cancer incidence rate in Korea, adjusted to the world standard population, was 289.3 per 100,000 people, which is lower than the OECD average of 300.9, as well as the United States (362.2), Canada (348), France (341.9), and Italy (292.6).

If Korean citizens survive up to the life expectancy of 83.6 years, the probability of developing cancer is estimated at 38.1%, with 39.1% for men and 36% for women. As of January 1 of last year, the number of cancer survivors was 2,434,089, meaning 1 in 21 people (4.7% of the total population) are cancer survivors, and among those aged 65 and older (1,194,156 cancer survivors), 1 in 7 people were cancer survivors.

Jeong Tongryeong, Director of Public Health Policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, stated, "No significant decrease in survival rates due to delayed cancer diagnosis during the COVID-19 period has been confirmed so far," and added, "We will strive to ensure that comprehensive cancer management, including early screening, can be carried out even if infectious diseases spread in the future."

Meanwhile, the most common cancer in 2021 was thyroid cancer (35,303 cases), followed by colorectal cancer, lung cancer, stomach cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and liver cancer. The incidence rates of stomach, colorectal, liver, and cervical cancers, which are targeted by the national cancer screening program, have shown a decreasing trend over the past decade. In contrast, the incidence rate of breast cancer has been increasing over the past 20 years.