Secular trends in the mortality of gastrointestinal cancers across China, Japan, the US, and India: An age-period-cohort, Joinpoint analyses, and Holt forecasts

BACKGROUND: Colon cancer, esophageal cancer, and stomach cancer are the common causes of morbidity and mortality in China, Japan, the US., and India. The current study aims to assess and compare secular trends of the mortality of gastrointestinal cancers during the period, 1990–2017 in age-specific, time period, and birth cohort effects. METHOD: We used the Joinpoint model to collect age-standardized mortality rates (ASMRs) for four countries. We designed an age-period-cohort (APC) analysis to estimate the independent effects on the mortality of three types of cancers. RESULT: The Joinpoint model shows that in addition to the death rate of esophageal cancer in Japan, the ASMR of esophageal cancer and stomach cancer in other countries declined rapidly. The APC analysis presented a similar pattern of age effect between four countries for colon cancer and stomach cancer, which increased from 20 to 89 age groups. Differently, the period effect rapidly increased for esophageal cancer and stomach cancer in the US, and the period effect in China presented a declining volatility, showing its highest value in 2007. In future, highest mortality trends are likely to occur in China. CONCLUSION: Therefore, the obvious increase in colon cancer recommended that earlier tactics must be performed to reduce mortality from specific causes from 2018 to 2027.