Abstract: Background and purpose: The incidence and mortality of esophageal cancer showed a downward trend substantially. However, there is limited evidence of the impact of esophageal cancer deaths on life expectancy. This study aimed to examine temporal trends in esophageal cancer eliminated life expectancy and potential years of life lost (PYLL) in Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province from 1981 to 2015. Methods: Data were collected from vital registry of Kunshan City. Esophageal cancer eliminated life expectancy and the PYLL were calculated by gender. Increased life expectancy by esophageal cancer elimination was defined as esophageal cancer eliminated life expectancy minus average life expectancy. The Chinese population in the year 2000 was used to calculate age standardized PYLL. Average annual percentage change (AAPC) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were used to examine the temporal trend in increased esophageal cancer eliminated life expectancy and PYLL. Results: From 1981 to 2015, substantial downward trend was observed in the esophageal cancer eliminated life expectancy, which decreased from 0.36 years in 1981 to 0.18 in 2015 (AAPC=-1.8%, 95%CI: -2.4% to -1.2%). There were significant decreasing trends for male (AAPC=1.5%, 95%CI: -2.2% to -0.8%) and female (AAPC=-2.3%, 95%CI: -3.0% to -1.6%). Moreover, we found decreased agestandardized PYLL among both genders (AAPC=-6.3%, 95%CI: -7.1% to -5.5%), male (AAPC=-5.7%, 95%CI: -6.7% to -4.7%) and female (AAPC=-8.7%, 95%CI: -10.3% to -7.1%). Conclusion: The overall decreasing trends were observed in esophageal cancer eliminated life expectancy and age-standardized PYLL, suggesting that the effects of premature deaths due to esophageal cancers were alleviated gradually.

Key words: Esophageal cancer, Potential years of life lost, Annual percentage change, Cancer-eliminated life expectancy