Trends in lung cancer incidence by gender, histological type and stage at diagnosis in Japan, 1993 to 2015: A multiple imputation approach

Continued decrease in smoking prevalence and increasing use of sensitive diagnostic procedures necessitate updated monitoring of trends in lung cancer incidence in Japan. We analyzed histology‐ and stage‐specific trends in 1993 to 2015 using data from 62 870 diagnosed cases from the Monitoring of Cancer Incidence in Japan project. After applying a multiple imputation approach to impute missing/unknown values of stage and histology, we estimated age‐standardized incidence rates and applied joinpoint regression analyses. We observed long‐term growth trends in adenocarcinoma (ADC) and localized cancer among both genders, long‐term declining trends among men and leveling‐off trends among women in small‐cell carcinoma (SMC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SQC). Stratifying by gender, we observed an increase in localized ADC with average annual percentage changes (AAPC) of 4.5 (95% confidence interval: 3.9 to 5.0) and 5.7 (5.0 to 6.4), a decrease in regional ADC with AAPC of −1.5 (−2.5 to −0.6) and −2.3 (−4.6 to 0.0), but an increase in distant ADC with AAPC of 1.5 (1.1 to 1.9) and 1.6 (0.9 to 2.3) among males and females, respectively. Additionally, increasing trends in female‐to‐male incidence rate ratios were observed in localized ADC with significantly above one in the most recent diagnosis period. Our results revealed evidence for a partial shift from advanced to early cancer stage, which may suggest the modest effectiveness of nationwide organized screening programs. The observed increasing localized and distant ADC may be linked to improved diagnostic procedures, especially for metastasis detection. Further investigation is needed for more accurate quantification of these factors.