Survival from five common cancers in Georgia, 2015-2019 (CONCORD).

BACKGROUND: Population-based cancer survival is a key metric of the effectiveness of health systems in managing cancer. Data from population-based cancer registries are essential for producing reliable and robust cancer survival estimates. Georgia established a national population-based cancer registry on 1 January 2015. This is the first analysis of population-based cancer survival from Georgia. METHODS: Data were available from the national cancer registry for 16,359 adults who were diagnosed with a cancer of the stomach, colon, rectum, breast (women) or cervix during 2015-2019. We estimated age-specific and age-standardised net survival at one, two and three years after diagnosis for each cancer, by sex. RESULTS: The data were of extremely high quality, with less than 2% of data excluded from each dataset. For the patients included in analyses, at least 80% of the tumours were microscopically verified. Age-standardised three-year survival from stomach cancer was 30.6%, similar in men and women. For colon cancer, three-year survival was 60.1%, with survival 4% higher for men than for women. Three-year survival from rectal cancer was similar for men and women, at 54.7%. For women diagnosed with breast cancer, three-year survival was 84.4%, but three-year survival from cervical cancer was only 67.2%. CONCLUSION: Establishment of a national cancer registry with obligatory cancer registration has enabled the first examination of population-based cancer survival in Georgia. Maintenance of the registry will facilitate continued surveillance of both cancer incidence and survival in the country.

Comparison of breast cancer and cervical cancer stage distributions in ten newly independent states of the former Soviet Union: a population-based study.

BACKGROUND: Screening for breast cancer and cervical cancer in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union is largely opportunistic, and countries in the region have among the highest cervical cancer incidence in the WHO European Region. We aimed to compare the stage-specific distributions and changes over time in breast cancer and cervical cancer incidence in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. METHODS: We collected breast cancer and cervical cancer incidence data from official statistics from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan for the years 2008-17 by tumour, node, metastasis (TNM) stage, and by age where population-based cancer registry data were available. We used log-linear regression to quantify the changes over time in age-standardised rates. FINDINGS: During the period 2013-17, more than 50% of breast cancer cases across the analysed countries, and more than 75% of breast cancer cases in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, were registered at stages I-II. The proportion of stage I breast cancer cases was highest in the screening age group (50-69 years) compared with other ages in Moldova and the Russian registries, but was highest in those aged 15-49 years in Georgia and Ukraine. Breast cancer stage-specific incidence rates increased over time, most prominently for stage I cancers. For cervical cancer, the proportions of cancers diagnosed at a late stage (stages III and IV) were high, particularly in Moldova and Armenia (>50%). The proportion of stage I cervical cancer cases decreased with age in all countries, whereas the proportions of late stage cancers increased with age. Stage-specific incidence rates of cervical cancer generally increased over the period 2008-17. INTERPRETATION: Our results suggest modest progress in early detection of breast cancer in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. The high proportions of early-stage disease in the absence of mammography screening (eg, in Belarus) provide a benchmark for what is achievable with rapid diagnosis. For cervical cancer, there is a need to tackle the high burden and unfavourable stage-specific changes over time in the region. A radical shift in national policies away from opportunistic screening toward organised, population-based, quality-assured human papillomavirus vaccination and screening programmes is urgently needed. FUNDING: Union for International Cancer Control, WHO Regional Office for Europe, and Ministry of Health of Ukraine.