Health disparities are associated with gastric cancer mortality-to-incidence ratios in 57 countries.

AIM: To evaluate the association between mortality-to-incidence ratios (MIRs) and health disparities.

METHODS: In this study, we used the GLOBOCAN 2012 database to obtain the cancer incidence and mortality data for 57 countries, and combined this information with the World Health Organization (WHO) rankings and total expenditures on health/gross domestic product (e/GDP). The associations between variables and MIRs were analyzed by linear regression analyses and the 57 countries were selected according to their data quality.

RESULTS: The more developed regions showed high gastric cancer incidence and mortality crude rates, but lower MIR values than the less developed regions (0.64 vs 0.80, respectively). Among six continents, Oceania had the lowest (0.60) and Africa had the highest (0.91) MIR. A good WHO ranking and a high e/GDP were significantly associated with low MIRs ( P = 0.001 and P = 0.001, respectively).

CONCLUSION: The MIR variation for gastric cancer would predict regional health disparities.