Cancer Res Treat.  2016 Jan;48(1):11-19. 10.4143/crt.2015.021.

Age-Period-Cohort Analysis of Female Breast Cancer Mortality in Korea

• Choi Y
• Kim Y
• Park SK
• Shin HR
• Yoo KY

• KMID: 2152255
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4143/crt.2015.021

Abstract

PURPOSE
Despite the low mortality rate of breast cancer among women in Korea, the breast cancer mortality rate has increased. The aim of this study was to examine trends in breast cancer mortality from 1983 to 2012 in Korea, assessing the importance of age, period, and birth cohort as risk factors.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Data on the annual number of deaths due to female breast cancer and on female population statistics from 1983 to 2012 were obtained from Statistics Korea. A log-linear Poisson age-period-cohort model was used to estimate age, period, and cohort effects.
RESULTS
The increasing breast cancer mortality can be explained predominantly by a birth cohort effect: the risk of breast cancer death showed a steady increase until the 1968 birth cohort, and decreased thereafter. There was a sharp increase in the magnitude of the age effect up to 60 years old, then a moderate increase in the effect during the sixties, followed by another sharp increase from 70 years old. The period effect on breast cancer mortality seems negligible based on its adjusted relative risk, even though it was statistically significant after adjusting for age and cohort effects.
CONCLUSION
In this study, the mortality pattern of breast cancer in Korea can be explained predominantly by a birth cohort effect. Hence, the overall mortality rate of breast cancer may increase for a while, and show a gradual decrease in the future, which will start from the younger age group.

Keyword

Cohort effect; Breast neoplasms; Death; Linear models

MeSH Terms

Breast Neoplasms*
Breast*
Cohort Effect
Cohort Studies
Female*
Humans
Korea*
Linear Models
Mortality*
Parturition
Population Characteristics
Risk Factors

Figure

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  Fig. 1. Mortality rates for female breast cancer by age at death (A) and year of birth (B).

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  Fig. 2. Age-period-cohort effect on female breast cancer mortality in Korea. The left graph shows the mortality rate per 100,000 by age for the reference cohort (birth year 1948) (A); the two right graphs show mortality risk (B) by birth cohort (a) and period (b) (dotted line represents 95% confidence interval).

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  Fig. 3. Predicted death rates of female breast cancer from 1970 to 2020.

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  Fig. 4. Incidence rates (per 100,000) for female breast cancer in Korea from 1999 to 2011.

Reference

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