Incidence and mortality trends in gastric cancer in the United States, 1992‐2019

Abstract Our study aimed to estimate the epidemiological trends of gastric cancer in the United States from 1992 to 2019. This population‐based study used the US Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results‐12 database as a fundamental cohort to analyze gastric cancer incidence, incidence‐based mortality (IBM), overall survival (OS) and cancer‐specific survival (CSS) probabilities from 1992 to 2019. The Global Burden of Disease study (1990‐2018) was used as a likely validation cohort. Age‐period‐cohort analyses were performed to explore the underlying causes of trend changes. We found that the incidence rate of gastric cancer decreased from 1992 to 2019. IBM also decreased significantly from 1997 to 2019. The 3‐year OS and CSS of gastric cancer increased from 22.3% to 28.7% and 25.7% to 33.5%, respectively. However, the proportion of distant gastric cancer cases had unexpectedly increased rapidly from 33.1% in 1992 to 44.7% in 2019. Age‐period‐cohort modeling found that the incidence and IBM rates remained stable in the groups aged below 50 years, while that in all age groups older than 50 years showed a significant downward trend. High incidence and mortality risks were observed in the younger birth cohorts (birth year after 1990). To conclude, we observed a decline in incidence and mortality rates of gastric cancer in the United States in the past decades. We determined that progression of primary and tertiary preventive measures is the main reason for the reduction in the disease burden of gastric cancer. However, secondary preventive measures for gastric cancer still need to be strengthened.