Cancer is a major public health issue in most of countries, including China. Accurate and valid information on cancer incidence, mortality, survival and relevant factors is irreplaceable for cancer prevention and control. Since the national program of cancer registry was launched by the Ministry of Health of China in 2008, the National Central Cancer Registry (NCCR) has been releasing the cancer incidence and mortality based on the data collected from cancer registries supported by the program. The cancer statistics provide current data from registered areas and aims to accurately reflect the cancer burden and epidemic in China. In 2014, the NCCR collected data for calendar year 2011 from 234 registries. After comprehensive quality evaluation, data from 177 registries have been selected as sources of the reports reflecting cancer incidence and mortality in the registration areas in 2011. These reports are the updated cancer statistics so far, covering much more registries and a big population.
Population-based cancer registry in China could play an important role for cancer control policy and research, although the geographical area coverage and data representativeness still need to be strengthened. We could do more analyses, such as estimation, projection, survival and relationship between cancer and other factors. The results could provide information for making cancer control strategies and give clues for cancer prevention and intervention.
We organized experts in cancer registration to contribute their efforts for this issue of descriptive epidemiology according to registration data in 2011 and share their perspectives on understanding the data, using data and present their findings.
We acknowledge all staff working for the cancer registries whose hard work contributes to the publication.
Wanqing Chen, MD, PhD
Acknowledgments
Disclosure: The author declares no conflict of interest.