Adjusted for age to the world standard population. The incidence of gastric malignancies is clearly going down in Finland - perhaps mostly due to the lower incidence of Helicobacter pylori-infection in the younger age groups.

The fact, that the actual numbers are smaller in the higher age groups is due to the smaller population in these age groups.

As many cancers, this cancer is more frequent in the older age groups, and is very rare in the age groups below 40 years of age.

The chart shows the change of incidence in a typical middle age population group during the last 40 years.

The five year survival rate for females and males with gastric cancer diagnosed in 1985 - 1989 and followed up to the end of 1994. 100% of survival means, that there are no excess mortality due to the cancer. As seen, the prognose of localized disease at time of the diagnose, is markedly more favourable than when the cancer is not localized. The 0% survival in the youngest age group is of course due to lack of cases in that age group. About every 4th patients in total survive for 5 years (and survival for 5 years usually means that the disease has been cured).

These charts are based on data from the Finnish Cancer Registry.

And here are all the important books about gastric cancer: