Cancer has become one of major diseases ´threatening healths of all human beings everywhere. In Korea cancer stepped up to the first rank of death causes in 1970´s from 9th in 1950´s. This literature review study was done in order to understand epidemiologic characteristics of cancer mortality and morbidity, and to identify what further data as well as what research strategies should be searched for development of an efficient control measure through primary and secondary prevention peculiar to Korea. All available papers published in recent decades on cancer were reviewed. Papers that had similar quality and common variables were selected; some data were cited as was in the original papers, some were pooled, some were re-arranged and computed for rates and life expectancy when feasible. Data on cancer reviewed and summarized are as followings:
1. The malignant neoplasm became the first rank of death causes in 1970´s, which was 9th in 1950´s. 2. The secular trends of cancer death showed gradual increase for all age groups above 20 years of age.
3. The cancer specific death rate per 100,000 populations was 38.8 for males and 30.9 for females in 1971 sample survey, whereas it was 43.5 for both sexes in 1974 death certificate study, an estimated rate. It should be noted, however, that the death certificates signed by licensed physicians were only about 43% of all certificates at that time, and also that hospital deaths and autopsies are scarce in Korea. The most frequent cancer that caused deaths was stomach cancer for both sexes, e.g., 24.5/ 100,000 for males and 14.5/100,000 for females.
4. Most of the morbidity data were hospital materials analyzed only numerators without even control groups. The relative frequency of cancer by primary site among all cancer patients diagnosed revealed that the proportion of each cancer site was somewhat various yet similar in its rank of frequency by hospital; stomach cancer ranged from 14.8% to 33.8%, malignant lymphoma 3.5-8.4%0, liver 3.3-8.2% for males; uterine cancer 37.5-56.8%, stomach cancer 7.416.8%, breast cancer 7.7-12.3%, rectal cancer 2.4-4.0% for females.
5. Pathology´ of stomach cancer which is the most frequent showed that about 60% of. all stomach cancers diagnosed was adenocarcinoma. ,
6. A nationwide stomach cancer screening examination on a part of high risk population identified definite stomach cancer in 7.7/1,000 screened.
7. The prevalence of uterine cervix cancer among screened women was 1.5/1,000. The proportion of advanced cases, invasive type, among patients detected through screening was significantly higher (over 65% of patients) than other countries, which suggests that the uterine cancer screening examination was not a matter of routine check-up but rather selective for high risk population in Korea.
8. On reviewing papers on cancer researches, it was found that most research papers dealt with simple numerator analysis presenting problems of deficient study methodology on design, analysis, and interpretation enabling to abstract any epidemiologic: characteristics and/or to identify risk factors of cancer.
9. To establish an efficient control measure of cancer in Korea the data that is considered -to be urgent are (1) valid epidemiologic data of mortality and morbidity based on population denominator (2) data´ on natural history of all kinds of cancer by well-designed researches, (3) studies on risk factors and/or etiology peculiar to Korean living environments.
10. Team approaches of various specialties for future cancer researches and strengthening courses or epidemiologic research methodology for graduate students of medical fields may be suggested to promote the cancer researches to better quality.
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