Incidence and mortality of liver cancer in mainland China: changes in first decade of 21st century.

Background/aims: To longitudinally analyze changes of primary liver cancer incidence and mortality in mainland China during the first decade of 21st century.

Methodology: Available data of crude incidence and mortality of primary liver cancer from annual reports of the National Central Cancer Registry in mainland China were retrieved and analyzed.

Results: Either the incidence or mortality of primary liver cancer in mainland China kept increasing and didn't reach peaks during the first decade of the 21st century, particularly among the female population with great incremental rates of incidence (8.76%) and mortality (11.99%) at 2007-2008 and 2009-2010, respectively. The crude incidence increased from 26.18/100,000 persons at 2004 to 29.00/100,000 persons at 2010, while the crude mortality from 25.08/100,000 persons to 28.10/100,000 persons (r=0.857, p=0.014). The incidence and mortality in males kept 2.5-2.9 folds to those in females. The incidence and mortality in rural region were always higher than those in urban regions, but among males both tended to decline in rural region, while in contrast increased in urban region.

Conclusions: Liver cancer still has high incidence and mortality in mainland China, and further effort is required to prevent and control liver cancer, particularly for male and rural population.