Premature mortality due to cancer in Japan, 1995 and 2005.

To better understand premature mortality due to cancer, we estimated years of life lost (YLL) and average years of life lost (AYLL) due to cancer for the years 1995 and 2005, based on data from the Vital Statistic of Japan. In men, we identified a total of 159,623 cancer deaths in 1995 and 196,603 in 2005. Total YLL were 2,342,560.4 and 2,724,066.0 years, respectively. Averaged for all cancers, people died 14.7 years earlier than life expectancy in 1995 and 13.9 years in 2005. AYLL was longest for brain cancer deaths, at 26.3 years earlier than expected in 1995 and 22.8 years in 2005, followed by leukemia. In women, a total of 103,399 cancer deaths occurred in 1995 and 129,338 in 2005. Total YLL were 1,818,960.4 years in 1995 and 2,160,706.5 years in 2005, corresponding to AYLL for all cancer combined of 17.6 and 16.7 years. The AYLL of brain cancer deaths was also the longest, at 29.4 years in 1995 and 27.8 in 2005, followed by leukemia and female sex-related cancers. Results showed that cancer of the stomach, colorectum, liver and lung were the most frequent cancers in both sexes in both 1995 and 2005 and responsible for a remarkable number of YLL. Further, AYLL was greatest for brain cancer and leukemia in both sexes and for sex-related cancers in women, namely breast, cervix and ovarian cancer.