Background: The incidence of liver and bile duct cancer continues to rise, especially in Thailand. We aimed to project the trends in incidence of this rare but lethal cancer in southern Thailand in order to determine its future disease burden.
Methods: Gender-specific trends in age-standardized incidence rates per 100,000 person-years for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) cases in Songkhla province of southern Thailand diagnosed between 1989 and 2013 were estimated and projected up to year 2030 using three different modeling techniques: a joinpoint model, an age-period-cohort model, and a modified age-period-cohort model.
Results: Of 2,676 liver and bile duct (LBD) cancer cases identified, 73% were males, 51% were aged between 50 and 69 years, and HCC (44.4%) was slightly more common than CCA (38.1%). The models all predicted an increase in the incidence rate of CCA up to 2025 for both sexes whereas the incidence of HCC is expected to decrease among males and stabilize among females. The incidence rates of HCC and CCA among males in 2030 could reach 6.7 and 9.4 per 100,000 person-years, respectively, whereas the expected rates of HCC and CCA among females are expected to be around 1.5 and 3.9 per 100,000 person-years, respectively.
Conclusions: The incidence of cholangiocarcinoma is expected to increase in Songkhla and will contribute a larger proportion of LBD cancers in the future. Future public health efforts and research studies should focus on this increasing trend.