Female breast cancer survival in Qidong, China, 1972–2011: a population-based study

BACKGROUND: Based on data from the population-based Qidong Cancer Registry, we report a survival analysis for female breast cancer patients diagnosed during 1972–2011 in order to assess the long-term trends for the prognosis of this cancer. METHODS: The last follow-up for survival status of the 3,398 registered female breast cancer cases was April, 2012. Cumulative observed survival (OS) and relative survival (RS) rates were calculated using Hakulinen’s method performed by the SURV3.01 Software developed at the Finnish Cancer Registry. RESULTS: The one-, three-, five-, ten-, fifteen-, twenty-, thirty-, and forty- year OS rates were 83.61%, 67.53%, 58.75%, 48.56%, 42.57%, 38.30%, 29.19%, 19.35%; and the RS rates were 84.76%, 70.45%, 63.12%, 56.81%, 55.26%, 56.36%, 62.59%, 84.00%, respectively. Five-year RS rates of age groups 15–34, 35–44, 45–54, 55–64, 65–74, and 75+ were 60.17%, 68.27%, 67.79%, 56.03%, 55.50%, and 57.28%; 10-year RS rates were 54.16%, 59.59%, 61.34%, 47.78%, 51.30%, and 59.28%, respectively. There were statistical differences among the age groups (RS: χ(2) = 152.15, P = 0.000). Remarkable improvement could be seen for the 5-year RS rates from 52.08% in 1972 to 69.26% in 2003–2007, and the 10-year RS rates from 43.16% in 1972 to 60.85% in 1998–2002, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Survival outcomes from Qidong registered cases with breast cancer have shown gradual progress during the past 40 years. The disparities between survival rates of this area and developed countries are getting narrower, but there is still great need for improving survival in Qidong.