Breast Cancer Statistics in Korea in 2017: Data from a Breast Cancer Registry

Sang Yull Kang; Yoo Seok Kim; Zisun Kim; Hyun Yul Kim; Hee Jeong Kim; Sungmin Park; Soo Youn Bae; Kwang Hyun Yoon; Sae Byul Lee; Se Kyung Lee; Kyu-Won Jung; Jaihong Han; Hyun Jo Youn; Korean Breast Cancer Society

doi:10.4048/jbc.2020.23.e24

Breast Cancer Statistics in Korea in 2017: Data from a Breast Cancer Registry

J Breast Cancer. 2020 Apr;23(2):115-128. doi: 10.4048/jbc.2020.23.e24.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Surgery, Research Institute of Clinical Medicine, Jeonbuk National University Hospital, Jeonbuk National University and Biomedical Research Institute, Jeonju, Korea.
² Department of Surgery, Chosun University Hospital, Gwangju, Korea.
³ Department of Surgery, Bucheon Hospital, School of Medicine, Soonchunhyang University, Bucheon, Korea.
⁴ Department of Surgery, Pusan National University Yangsan Hospital, Yangsan, Korea.
⁵ Department of Surgery, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
⁶ Department of Surgery, Chungbuk National University Hospital, College of Medicine, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, Korea.
⁷ Division of Breast and Endocrine Surgery, Department of Surgery, Korea University Hospital, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
⁸ Department of Surgery, Gangneung Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Gangneung, Korea.
⁹ Department of Surgery, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
¹⁰ The Korea Central Cancer Registry, National Cancer Center, Goyang, Korea.

Abstract

This article describes the breast cancer statistics in Korea, including the incidence, type of surgical procedure, stage, and molecular subtype, using the Korean Breast Cancer Society (KBCS) and Korea Central Cancer Registry data. There were a total of 26,534 new breast cancer diagnoses in 2017 in Korea, of which 4,139 were carcinoma in situ cases and 22,395 were invasive cancer cases. The age standardized rate of breast cancer was 75.3 per 100,000 women in 2017 (63.0 of invasive carcinoma and 12.3 of carcinoma in situ), and it has been steadily increasing across all age groups. Breast cancer occurred most commonly in the 40-49 age group. Compared to 2016, breast conserving surgery (BCS) has increased, and 67.4% of patients were treated with BCS in 2017. The proportions of stage 0 and stage I have continued to increase, accounting for 60.7%. The most common subtype of breast cancer was hormone receptor (HR) positive and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) negative type comprising 65.9% of the cases, whereas HR negative and HER2 positive type was the rarest comprising 10.2% of the cases. The 5-year relative survival rate of breast cancer patients had increased by 14.0% from 79.2% in 1993-1995 to 93.2% in 2013-2017. It is essential to actively enter breast cancer data into the KBCS registry to improve our understanding.

Keywords: Breast neoplasms; Epidemiology; Korea; Registries; Statistics.

Publication types

Review