We analysed cancer mortality data from 1988 to 2017 in the UK, focussing on years of life lost (YLL) due to cancer. We looked at all cancers combined, as well as 17 individual cancer types.
Investigating YLL can help us understand the impact of different cancers on patients’ lives, and highlights cancer deaths in younger patients. This can inform health policy discussions and public health decisions.
Over 2 million years of life are lost to cancer each year in the UK.
Lung cancer accounts for around a fifth of the total, with more than 500,000 years of life lost to the disease each year in the UK.L
Lung, bowel, and breast cancer together account for around 40% of the years of life lost to cancer each year in the UK.
The number of years of life lost to cancer are higher in older age groups, peaking between ages 60–64 and 75–79. This reflects the greater number of cancers that are diagnosed in older age groups.
However, for some cancers, such as leukaemia and breast, the number of years of life lost begin to increase at younger ages, reflecting the pattern of incidence for these cancers.
There has been a steady decline in the rate of both cancer mortality and years of life lost to cancer between 1988 and 2017.
The biggest changes in the number of years of life lost by age over time were seen in leukaemia, cervical, and breast cancer. These changes can be explained by improvements in treatment and survival, and the introduction of breast and cervical screening programmes in 1988.
Years of life lost to cancer reflect the patterns of both cancer incidence and mortality. In the UK, the cancers with the highest incidence 2013-2017 were breast, prostate, lung and bowel cancer. While the cancers with the highest number of years of life lost were lung, breast, and bowel for women, and lung, bowel and prostate for men. That prostate cancer accounts for only the third highest number of years of life lost amongst men, while being the most commonly diagnosed and second highest cause of cancer death, reflects the fact that more prostate cancer deaths occur in older age groups, where life expectancy is lower.
Years of life lost is a useful measure that can increase the prominence of cancers that affect younger age groups. When taken together with incidence and mortality data, this can help researchers, policymakers and funders obtain a more complete picture of the impact different cancers have on society, which can help inform the planning of services and interventions.
Read the full article on the BCJ websiteAmar S. Ahmad, Judith Offman , Christine Delon, Bernard V. North, Jon Shelton, Peter D. Sasieni
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