Cancer led to 4 million potential years of life lost in 2017
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Cancer led to 4 million potential years of life lost in 2017 in the United States, with cancers occurring in younger patients accounting for a disproportionate amount of the burden, according to study results.
“Potential years of life lost is an estimate of the average years a person would have lived if he or she had not died prematurely,” Minkyo Song, MD, PhD, research fellow at NCI, said in a press release. “Given that cancer is the leading cause of death in those younger than 80 years old, it is important to study the effect of cancer death rates among younger people.”
Cancer accounted for nearly 600,000 deaths in the United States in 2017, making it the second leading cause of death behind heart disease. The most common cancer-related deaths occur due to cancers of the lung (men, 21%; women, 24%), colon/rectum (men and women, 9% each), breast (women, 15%) and prostate (10%).
Although cancer mortality rates provide information on the burden of cancer and progress in prevention and control, these estimates are disproportionately skewed toward deaths that occur at an older age, according to study background.
Thus, Song and colleagues sought to describe potential years of life lost, a metric that reflects the impact of cancer deaths that occur at younger ages by estimating the average years a person would have lived had they not died prematurely.
The researchers used U.S. national death certificate and racial and ethnic group data from 1990 to 2017 to calculate potential years of life lost — defined as the sum of the total years of life lost before age 75 years — and potential years of life lost per individual death in 2017 for 45 categories of common cancers.
Overall, results — published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention — showed cancer-related deaths resulted in 4,280,128 potential years of life lost before age 75 years in the U.S. in 2017.
The largest loss of potential years of life occurred from deaths of lung or bronchus (20.8%), colorectal (9.6%), breast (9.4%), pancreatic (6.6%), and liver or intrahepatic bile duct (5.4%) cancers.
Researchers noted that these data indicate that cancers with the highest potential years of life lost also generally correlated with overall cancer mortality rates, with the exception of prostate cancer, accounting for 5.1% of deaths and 2% of potential years of life lost.
“Many of the deaths caused by this cancer occurred at older ages, resulting in fewer [potential years of life lost],” Song said.
Researchers also measured potential years of life lost per individual death, which can help better describe the burden from rare cancers among younger people.
The greatest loss of potential years per individual death occurred due to cancers of the testis (mean, 34 years per death); bones or joints (26.4 years); other endocrine sites, including the thymus (25.2 years); cervix uteri (20.7 years); and soft issue, including the heart (19.4 years).
Researchers also found that certain ethnic and racial groups accounted for a disproportionate share of the burden of premature cancer death, with 78% of all cancer deaths but only 70% of potential years of life lost occurring among white individuals. In contrast, 7% of all cancer deaths but 10% of potential years of life lost occurred among Hispanic individuals, and 12% of all cancer deaths and 15% of potential years of life lost occurred among Black individuals.
“Potential years of life lost is a useful ‘complementary measure’ to cancer mortality rates,” Song said. “Together, they provide a more detailed picture of the social and economic toll of cancer. Potential years of life lost can be used to estimate the impact of cancer death in younger populations. This metric highlights the enormous loss of life due to certain cancers that occur at younger ages, even if they occur infrequently.”
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