Abstract
Objective: A comparative study was performed to investigate the characteristics of cancers discovered in hospital patients and those in health check-up examinees regarding stage, organ and prognosis.
Methods: 568 cancer patients reported to the population-based cancer registry of Aichi Prefecture in Japan were enrolled in this study. In 86 of them, the cancer had been detected in a health check-up. We compared organ, stage and prognosis between the health check-up examinees and hospital patients.
Results: Stomach, colonic and urogenital cancers were prevalent in the health check-up examinees and hospital patients. The rate of stage I stomach cancer in health check-up examinees was 100%. The rate of stage I stomach cancer in hospital patients was 32.3% and the total for stage Ⅲ and Ⅳ exceeded 50%. As for colonic cancer, the percentage of early stage cancer was greatest in both health check-up examinees and hospital patients. However, the percentage of stage Ⅲ and Ⅳ in hospital patients was two or three times greater than in health check-up examinees. Regarding urogenital cancers, 60% were in the early stage in the health check-up examinees, while the proportion in the early stage for the hospital patients was 30%. The prognosis of the cancer detected in health check-ups was better as compared with the hospital patients.
Conclusion: The data reported to the cancer registry showed that cancers were detected at an earlier stage in health check-up examinees as compared with hospital patients. Thus, preventive cancer screening should be promoted.
