Temporal trends of the disease burden of renal cell carcinoma from 1992 to 2019 in the US: A population-based analysis

Purpose Significant advances in the management, in particular the treatment, of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) has have been made over the years. However, it is not clear whether these advances reduce the disease burden of RCC at the population level. Methods Using data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database, we estimated the temporal trends of RCC incidence, incidence-based mortality (IBM), and survival rates in the United States (US) from 1992 to through 2019. Results From 2008 to 2019, the incidence increased slowly at 1.1% annually (95% CI: 0.6–1.5%). The overall IBM rate of RCC increased by 6.8% per year (95% CI: -1.1–15.3%) between 1994 and 1997, plateaued between 1997 and 2015, and then decreased nonsignificantly after 2015. During the study period, the overall 5-year survival rate of RCC continuously increased from 53.69% in 1992 to 72.90% in 2014, with the best improvement observed for RCC patients with distant disease. However, we projected that, given the current trends, the incidence of RCC in the US will continue to increase from 6.92 per 100,000 in 2015–2019 to 9.59 per 100,000 in 2040–2044. Conclusion Over the years, the mortality of RCC has been decreased reducing at the US populational level mainly because the considerably significantly improved survival of RCC patients at all stages through the advances in treatment. However, the overall incidence of RCC is continuously increasing, indicating that more effective preventive strategies should be developed to reduce the disease burden of RCC.