Journal of Skin Cancer
Volume 2011, Article ID 293926, 5 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2011/293926
Statistical Survey of Deaths from Nonmelanoma Skin Cancer in Japan during 54 Years
Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Saiseikai Imabari 2nd Hospital, 1-7-43, Kita-hiyoshi-cho, Imabari-shi, Ehime 794-0054, Japan
Received 22 July 2010; Revised 19 September 2010; Accepted 13 December 2010
Academic Editor: Mohammed Kashani-Sabet
Copyright © 2011 Hisashi Ohtsuka. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
The author analyzed the annual trends in the number of deaths from nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC) from 1955 to 2008 in Japan on the basis of the data from the Vital Statistics of Japan. The general trends in the number of deaths from NMSC were downward between 1979 to 1994, but upward after 1995. The general trends in age-standardized death rates were roughly downward, although the death rates plateaued after 1995. The recent annual increased ratio of deaths from NMSC was 3.8% (95% confidence interval: 2.7 ∼ 4.9%). The number and proportion of deaths from NMSC among the elderly were increasing in Japan. For females, more than 50% of the deaths occurred recently at or after 85 years of age, whereas, for males, this proportion was at or after 75 years of age, nearly reaching at or after 80 years of age.