CLL Incidence Based-Mortality By Gender: Is There a Change in the Probability of Dying from CLL Today Among Men and Women?

CLL Incidence Based-Mortality by Gender: Is there a change in the probability of dying from CLL today among men and women?

Background:

About one-fourth of newly diagnosed cases of leukemia are CLL. The lifetime risk of developing CLL is approximately 1 in 175 (0.57%) for the average person. Men are slightly more at risk than women are.

We looked at the incidence-based mortality rates (probability of dying from) of CLL by gender in adult populations in the United States from 2000-2019 via SEER.gov database.

Methods:

We used Incidence -Based Mortality SEER Research Data, 17 Registries, Nov 2021 Sub (2000-2019), which provides the broadest geographic coverage for incidence-based mortality rates and is roughly 26.5% of the US population (based on the 2020 Census) for the calculation of incidence rates of CLL. SEER*Stat 8.4.1 was used to obtain age-adjusted rates for different age-groups, races and genders. We used Join-point software, version 5.0.2. by the National Cancer Institute, annually to create log-linear time trends.

There are no P-values noted for the CI as Joinpoint does not currently produce a test statistic or p-value for Empirical Quantile confidence intervals.

Results:

Fig 1: CLL Incidence Based Mortality Rate per 100,000 and age-adjusted to the 2000 US standard population for males and females 2000-2019

Our study showed increasing incidence based mortality rates, with higher rates in males compared to females. We also noted significant Joinpoints in 2002, 2005 and 2012 for males and2003, and 2010 for females. It is of note that at the Joinpoints, the slope for the rate significantly changes or drops.

The Average Annual Percent Change (AAPC) for males and females were 10.64%*(95% CI 9.95 to 11.53) and 10.09%*( 95% CI 9.41 to 11.44)

Conclusion:

Our study reveals that the slope of incidence-based mortality has significantly reduced over the years from 2000-2019. This means the probability of dying from CLL has also significantly dropped over the years.

This pattern points to changes in guidelines or therapy that have significantly impacted the probability of dying from CLL. This suggests that more investigation is warranted to understand the underlying causes for the trends appreciated.