Prevalence and trend of gastrointestinal malignant tumors in the elderly over 75 years old in China / 中华胃肠外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Gastrointestinal malignant tumors are the most common malignant neoplasms among the elderly people over 75 years old in China. There are 122.1 thousand new gastric cases and 78.2 thousand new colorectal cancer cases diagnosed each year in China, which accounts for 42.73% and 18.08% respectively of the cases with same age in the world. The gastric cancer accounts for 25.13% and colorectal cancer accounts for 28.86%of all the malignancies in the elderly. The gastric cancer death accounts for 36.38% and colorectal cancer death accounts for 44.68% in those people over 75 years old in China. It was estimated that the risk of developing gastrointestinal malignant tumors of these elderly people was about 5-6 times and the risk of death of gastrointestinal malignant tumors was about 7-8 times of the general population. Compared with the general population and the people of 55-74 years old, the incidence of gastric cancer in the elderly decreased more slowly and the incidence of colorectal cancer increased more quickly over the past 40 years, which brought significant double burden. The survival rate of gastrointestinal malignant tumors in these elderly was lower than that of the general population. We summarized the incidence, mortality, survival and trend of gastrointestinal malignant tumors in the Chinese elderly, in order to provide data for predicting the age distribution and disease burden in the future, to improve the awareness for cancer prevention and control among these elderly, and to call attention to epidemiology, preclinical and clinical medicine for the elderly, especially in the field of study on the influence between comorbidity and cancer treatment, with the aim of improving survival and quality of life among the elderly.