Prevalence and patients' choice of hospital for upper gastrointestinal cancer by using the New Rural Cooperative Medical System database in Hua County, Henan Province, China / 肿瘤

ABSTRACT

Objective: To describe the epidemiological characteristics of esophageal cancer, cardiac cancer and non-cardiac gastric cancer in Hua County, Henan Province, and to analyze the patients' choice of hospital by using the data from local NCMS (New Rural Cooperative Medical System) database. Methods: The newly diagnosed cases of esophageal, cardiac and non-cardiac gastric cancers were acquired from the NCMS database of Hua County through a standardized screening procedure. Crude incidence rates, the world's and China's population- standardized incidence rates and truncated incidence rates were calculated. 2-test was used to evaluate the differences of proportions of the patients' choice of hospital. Results: The crude incidence rates of esophageal, cardiac and non-cardiac gastric cancers were 50.52/105, 9.63/105 and 7.00/105, respectively, in rural Hua County, Henan Province, in 2011. Higher incidence rates of these three kinds of cancers were observed in males. The incidence rates of esophageal and non-cardiac gastric cancers in males and females as well as that of cardiac cancer in females increased with age. Although the hospital choice was significantly different among the patients with various cancers (2 = 19.53,P = 0.003), county-level medical facilities were predominant in all three kinds of cancer patients. The hospital choice between the male and female patients was not significantly different (2 = 2.14,P = 0.543). The elderly patients tended to choose lower level of medical facilities while the younger patients chose higher level of medical facilities. Conclusion: Hua County of Henan Province is a high-risk region of esophageal cancer. The policy of NCMS should be further improved to ensure equality of the medical service and resource accessibility for rural elder cancer patients. Copyright © 2013 by TUMOR.