Cancer Statistics in Korea: Incidence, Mortality, Survival, and Prevalence in 2009

Stomach, liver and cervical cancers have been decreasing and thyroid, breast and colorectal cancers have been increasing at large. In particular, in 2009, colorectal cancer became the third most common cancer in females and for the first time ranked higher than stomach cancer, which had been the long-standing common cancer in Korea. While overall cancer incidence has been rapidly increasing in Korea, age-standardized cancer mortality rates have been declining since 2002, and cancer survival has been improving.