Initial results from a multi-center population-based cluster randomized trial of esophageal and gastric cancer screening in China.

BACKGROUND: We initiated the first multi-center cluster randomized trial of endoscopic screening for esophageal cancer and gastric cancer in China. The objective of the study was to report the baseline screening findings in this trial. METHODS: We recruited a total of 345 eligible clusters from seven screening centers. In the intervention group, participants from high-risk areas were screened by endoscopy; in non-high-risk areas, high-risk individuals were identified using a questionnaire and advised for endoscopy. Lugol's iodine staining in esophagus and indigo carmine dye in stomach were performed to aid in the diagnosis of suspicious lesions. The primary outcomes of this study were the detection rate (proportion of positive cases among individuals who underwent endoscopic screening) and early detection rate (the proportion of positive cases with stage 0/I among all positive cases). RESULTS: A total of 149,956 eligible subjects were included. The detection rate was 0.7% in esophagus and 0.8% in stomach, respectively. Compared with non-high-risk areas, the detection rates in high-risk areas were higher, both in esophagus (0.9% vs. 0.1%) and in stomach (0.9% vs. 0.3%). The same difference was found for early-detection rate (esophagus: 92.9% vs. 53.3%; stomach: 81.5% vs. 33.3%). CONCLUSIONS: The diagnostic yield of both esophagus and stomach were higher in high-risk areas than in non-high-risk areas, even though in non-high-risk areas, only high-risk individuals were screened. Our study may provide important clues for evaluating and improving the effectiveness of upper-endoscopic screening in China. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Protocol Registration System in Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, ChiCTR-EOR-16008577. Registered 01 June 2016-Retrospectively registered, http://www.chictr.org.cn/showprojen.aspx?proj=14372.

Health-related quality of life and health utility score of patients with gastric cancer: A multi-centre cross-sectional survey in China.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and health state utility scores of gastric cancer patients in daily life at different clinical stages after treatment, and to explore influencing factors associated with HRQoL. METHODS: Gastric cancer patients discharged from hospitals and healthy controls identified by screening were recruited. The three-level EQ-5D was employed to assess HRQoL and was scored using two Chinese-specific tariffs published in 2014 and 2018. RESULTS: A total of 1,399 patients and 2,179 healthy controls were recruited. The likelihood of reporting problems in the five dimensions for patients was 4.0-23.8 times higher than controls. Based on the 2014/2018 tariff, the mean EQ-5D utility score was 0.321/0.163 lower than controls, and the mean utility scores of each patient subgroup were 0.077/0.039 (high-grade intraepithelial neoplasia/carcinoma in situ), 0.254/0.121 (Stage I), 0.249/0.123 (Stage II), 0.353/0.182 (Stage III) and 0.591/0.309 (Stage IV) lower than controls (all statistically significant). Age, occupation, duration of illness, other chronic disease status and therapeutic regimen had a significant impact upon different aspects of HRQoL in patients. CONCLUSIONS: Gastric cancer significantly impaired patients' HRQoL in daily life after treatment. More advanced cancer stages were associated with larger decrements on health state utility.

Annual cost of illness of stomach and esophageal cancer patients in urban and rural areas in China: A multi-center study.

OBJECTIVE: Stomach and esophageal cancer are imposing huge threats to the health of Chinese people whereas there were few studies on the financial burden of the two cancers. METHODS: Costs per hospitalization of all patients with stomach or esophageal cancer discharged between September 2015 and August 2016 in seven cities/counties in China were collected, together with their demographic information and clinical details. Former patients in the same hospitals were sampled to collect information on annual direct non-medical cost, indirect costs and annual number of hospitalization. Annual direct medical cost was obtained by multiplying cost per hospitalization by annual number of hospitalization. Annual cost of illness (ACI) was obtained by adding the average value of annual direct medical cost, direct non-medical cost and indirect cost, stratified by sex, age, clinical stage, therapy and pathologic type in urban and rural areas. Costs per hospitalization were itemized into eight parts to calculate the proportion of each part. All costs were converted to 2016 US dollars (1 USD=6.6423 RMB). RESULTS: Totally 19,986 cases were included, predominately male. Mean ages of stomach cancer and urban patients were lower than that of esophageal cancer and rural patients. ACI of stomach and esophageal cancer patients were $10,449 and $13,029 in urban areas, and $2,927 and $3,504 in rural areas, respectively. Greater ACI was associated with male, non-elderly patients as well as those who were in stage I and underwent surgeries. Western medicine fee took the largest proportion of cost per hospitalization. CONCLUSIONS: The ACI of stomach and esophageal cancer was tremendous and varied substantially among the population in China. Preferential policies of medical insurance should be designed to tackle with this burden and further reduce the health care inequalities.

Sociodemographic disparities in gastric cancer and the gastric precancerous cascade: A population-based study.

Background: Gastric carcinogenesis is a multistep process initiating with chronic gastritis and progressing through atrophy, intestinal metaplasia, and dysplasia to carcinoma. This study aims to comprehensively investigate sociodemographic disparities in each stage of gastric carcinogenesis and estimate to what extent the inequalities could be ascribed to risk factors of gastric cancer (GC). Methods: We used the baseline data from a community-based study in China's high-risk areas, totalling 27094 participants. Gastric mucosa status was ascertained by endoscopy and biopsies. An overall socioeconomic status (SES) variable was generated by latent class analysis. We calculated relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) using modified Poisson regression to assess associations of sociodemographic factors with each cascade stage. We estimated the percentage of the excess risk for neoplastic lesions among vulnerable populations that can be explained by established risk factors. Results: Age and sex showed associations with all gastric lesions, whose RRs increased with lesion progressing. Compared with individuals without schooling, the RRs of neoplastic lesions for people with primary, secondary, and post-secondary education were 0·86 (95% CI 0·76-0·97), 1·00 (95% CI 0·88-1·13), and 0·70 (95% CI 0·47-1·03), respectively. Participants with medium SES had a lower risk of neoplastic lesions than people in the low SES group (RR 0·83, 95% CI 0·74-0·93). GC risk factors could explain 33·6% of the excess risk of neoplastic lesions among men and a small proportion of the disparities among SES groups. Interpretation: Age and sex were essential sociodemographic factors for GC and precursor diseases. Individuals with low educational levels or SES were more likely to have neoplastic lesions. About one-third of the sex difference and a slight fraction of the socioeconomic inequalities could be attributed to included risk factors. Funding: Sanming Project of Medicine in Shenzhen, National Natural Science Foundation, and Special Project of Bejing-Tianjin-Hebei Basic Research Cooperation.

Improved esophageal squamous cell carcinoma screening effectiveness by risk-stratified endoscopic screening: evidence from high-risk areas in China.

BACKGROUND: Risk-stratified endoscopic screening (RSES), which offers endoscopy to those with a high risk of esophageal cancer, has the potential to increase effectiveness and reduce endoscopic demands compared with the universal screening strategy (i.e., endoscopic screening for all targets without risk prediction). Evidence of RSES in high-risk areas of China is limited. This study aimed to estimate whether RSES based on a 22-score esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) risk prediction model could optimize the universal endoscopic screening strategy for ESCC screening in high-risk areas of China. METHODS: Eight epidemiological variables in the ESCC risk prediction model were collected retrospectively from 26,618 individuals aged 40-69 from three high-risk areas of China who underwent endoscopic screening between May 2015 and July 2017. The model's performance was estimated using the area under the curve (AUC). Participants were categorized into a high-risk group and a low-risk group with a cutoff score having sensitivities of both ESCC and severe dysplasia and above (SDA) at more than 90.0%. RESULTS: The ESCC risk prediction model had an AUC of 0.80 (95% confidence interval: 0.75-0.84) in this external population. We found that a score of 8 (ranging from 0 to 22) had a sensitivity of 94.2% for ESCC and 92.5% for SDA. The RSES strategy using this threshold score would allow 50.6% of endoscopies to be avoided and save approximately US$ 0.59 million compared to universal endoscopic screening among 26,618 participants. In addition, a higher prevalence of SDA (1.7% vs. 0.9%), a lower number need to screen (60 vs. 111), and a lower average cost per detected SDA (US$ 3.22 thousand vs. US$ 5.45 thousand) could have been obtained by the RSES strategy. CONCLUSIONS: The RSES strategy based on individual risk has the potential to optimize the universal endoscopic screening strategy in ESCC high-risk areas of China.

Health-related quality of life of esophageal cancer patients in daily life after treatment: A multicenter cross-sectional study in China.

BACKGROUND: The improvement of diagnostic and therapeutic techniques has prolonged the survival time of patients with esophageal cancer. Little is known, however, about their health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in daily life after treatment. METHODS: Esophageal cancer patients who had been discharged from hospitals more than one year and healthy controls identified by screening were recruited from seven study centers covering eastern, central, and western regions of China. Patients were categorized into severe dysplasia/carcinoma in situ and stages I, II, III, and IV cancer, respectively. The EQ-5D was employed to assess HRQoL. Multivariate regression analyses were conducted. RESULTS: A total of 1456 patients and 2179 controls were recruited. After adjusting for potential confounding factors, the likelihood of reporting problems in the five dimensions of patients was 3.8 to 23.1 times higher than controls, whilst the mean EQ-5D utility score was 0.311 (95% CI, 0.276-0.346) lower than controls. The mean utility scores of each patient subgroup were 0.158, 0.289, 0.303, 0.296, and 0.505 (95% CIs: 0.108-0.208, 0.243-0.336, 0.261-0.346, 0.244-0.347, and 0.437-0.573) lower than controls, respectively. Patients had the greatest impairment in the self-care dimension compared with controls, followed by the usual activities dimension. Therapeutic regimen, duration of illness, other chronic disease status, age, and marital status also had significant impact on different aspects of HRQoL in patients. CONCLUSIONS: Esophageal cancer significantly impaired patients' HRQoL in daily life after treatment. Advanced cancer stages were associated with larger decrements on health state utility. Utility scores reported here can facilitate further cost-utility analyses.