2022 Volume 60 Issue 4 Pages 650-656
In recent years, Saga Prefecture, which has many gastric cancer patients, has been actively engaged in gastric cancer screening and countermeasures regarding preventing this disease in each age group, from children and young adults to the middle-aged and elderly. As primary prevention, we carried out the "Gastric Cancer Countermeasure Promotion Project for the Future" that, from 2016, entitles all 15-year-olds in the prefecture to Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection testing and eradication at public expense. In the three years from 2016, 21,368 people have participated and the project is ongoing. Next, in the young adult group, H. pylori examination assistance is provided in 13 out of 20 municipalities in the prefecture, which may have an important effect on preventing gastric cancer by H. pylori eradication. For middle-aged and older people, in addition to the conventional gastric barium examination, we introduced gastro endoscopy as an organized screening in 2017 in Saga prefecture. Targeting even-numbered age people in their 50s and 60s, the number of registered facilities is 17 (2017), 53 (2018), 73 (2019), and 92 (2020) with corresponding examinee numbers being 82, 544, 797, and 948, respectively, from 2017 to 2020. Six gastric cancers were found in the last four years. In 2020, all 20 municipalities in Saga prefecture participated. In the future, it is important to further increase the number of examinees. Additionally, from 2018, "The Cancer Eradication Special Measures Office" was established in the Health Promotion Division of the Saga Prefecture Health and Welfare Department. With these efforts, we believe that this comprehensive H. pylori screening and eradication campaign will have a lasting impact on the prevalence of gastric cancer in the Saga Prefecture.
