Cancer statistics in Korea: incidence, mortality, survival and prevalence in 2023

The Korea Central Cancer Registry's annual statistics, calculated from the Korea National Cancer Incidence Database for 1999 to 2023 with survival follow-up to 31 December 2024 and mortality from the Ministry of Data and Statistics. The database is assembled from hospital registrations backed up by the central and eleven regional registries, takes two years to complete, and for 2023 was estimated to be 97.4 per cent complete by the Ajiki method.

In 2023 there were 288,613 new cancer cases (age-standardised rate 288.6 per 100,000 on the world standard) and 85,271 cancer deaths (64.3 per 100,000). Half the new cases, 145,452 or 50.4 per cent, were in people aged 65 or over. Prostate cancer became the commonest cancer among men for the first time. The share of cancers found at a localised stage rose from 45.6 per cent in 2005 to 51.8 per cent in 2023. Five-year relative survival for cases diagnosed in 2019 to 2023 was 73.7 per cent overall and 92.7 per cent for localised disease, and over 2.73 million people alive in 2023 had had a cancer diagnosis, 5.3 per cent of the population. Thyroid cancer incidence rose by 22.4 per cent a year from 1999 to 2011, fell by 12.1 per cent a year to 2016 and has risen by 5.3 per cent a year since. Stomach cancer mortality fell from 23.9 to 5.4 per 100,000 between 1999 and 2023 and liver cancer incidence from 27.9 to 12.8.