The number of potential years of life lost is a
population-based mortality indicator that estimates the excess number of years
a person could have lived had they not died prematurely of cancer. It is an
alternative to mortality rates for measuring the cancer burden in a population
and gives more weight to cancers that occur in young people.
There are two main methods for calculating the number of
years of life lost. The first method uses the difference between the age of
death and a fixed life expectancy (usually 75 years). Individuals who die after the fixed age do not
contribute to the total years of life lost. The second method uses standard life
tables to estimate the number of years of life expected to be remaining at each
age up to age 100, thereby providing a more robust estimate.
The Texas Cancer Registry used the second method to calculate
the total number of potential years of life lost due to cancer deaths in Texas between
2011 and 2015. To determine the number of years of life expected, TCR used the
United States Life Tables, 2013 from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics. These tables
were selected because 2013 is the midpoint for the selected time period
(2011-2015). The number of expected years of life lost to each cancer death was
calculated for each sex, race, and Hispanic ethnicity. For example, in 2013 a 50-year-old
Hispanic male was expected to live an additional 31.8 years; therefore, if he
were to die at age 50, the years of life lost would be 31.8 years.
To calculate the total number of years of life lost, the
number of years of life lost from each cancer death were added together. The
total number of years of life lost was then divided by the number of deaths to
give the average number of years of life lost per cancer death. Data are
presented by cancer site, sex, and race/Hispanic ethnicity.
Some cancer sites have a large overall number of years of
life lost due to the relatively large number of people who die from that particular
cancer. For example, lung cancer led to a total of 642,069.2 years of life
lost, averaging 13.9 years of life lost for each case. Alternatively, some cancer
sites have a high average number of years of life lost per cancer death often due
to the younger age at which the cancer typically occurs. For example, cervical
cancer led to a total of 47,470.3 years of life lost, averaging 25.9 years of
life lost for each case.
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