The government will push to raise the early diagnosis rate for six major cancers to 60% by 2030 and introduce colonoscopy to the national screening program for colorectal cancer. It will also broaden eligibility for lung cancer screening. With cancer survivors exceeding 1.7 million, the government will revise post-treatment health management and the hospice system. The plan is to redesign the entire cycle from cancer prevention and treatment to end-of-life care.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare on the 24th convened the National Cancer Control Committee and deliberated and approved the Fifth Comprehensive Cancer Control Plan (2026–2030) containing these measures.
◇ Cancer mortality lower than in the U.S. and Japan, but… "Incidence rising due to aging"
Starting with Phase 1 of the 10-year Cancer Conquest Plan in 1996, the government has implemented four rounds of comprehensive cancer control measures. As a result, Korea's cancer mortality rate has fallen to a level lower than that of the United States and Japan.
The 5-year relative survival rate for the six cancers covered by national screening (stomach, breast, colorectal, liver, lung, and cervical) was 69.9% during 2019–2023, up 19.2 percentage points from 50.7% during 2001–2005.
As of 2023, 52.9% of the six major cancers were detected at the "localized" stage, confined to the organ. In such cases, the 5-year relative survival rate reaches 92.0%. The effect of early screening is thus confirmed in the numbers.
However, cancer incidence continues to rise due to population aging. Preventive practices remain slow. In 2024, screening uptake rates were 74.6% for liver cancer, 63.5% for breast cancer, 63.2% for stomach cancer, 60.1% for cervical cancer, 52.1% for lung cancer, and 40.3% for colorectal cancer. In particular, the colorectal cancer screening rate remains in the 40% range.
The concentration of cancer patients in the greater Seoul area also continues. There are comments that systems enabling diagnosis, treatment, and management to be completed within each region have yet to be sufficiently established.
Demand for survivor management is also rising rapidly. As of 2023, 1,697,799 patients had survived more than five years after a cancer diagnosis, or about 1 in 30 people (3.3%).
The need to improve the life-sustaining treatment decision system and to expand hospice services for a dignified end of life has been consistently raised.
Calls are growing to shift the focus of cancer data, which has expanded quantitatively to 5.29 million cases, toward qualitative advancement. Establishing a foundation for precision research using artificial intelligence (AI) is also cited as a task.
Reflecting these conditions, the government set the vision as "cancer control for all, a better, healthier future," and prepared a comprehensive plan built on four pillars: early detection, a regionally complete medical system, cancer survivor care, and AI-based research. It consists of four areas, 12 key tasks, and 68 detailed tasks.
◇ "Preventable cancers" addressed preemptively… HPV vaccination expanded to boys
In prevention, the National Cancer Prevention Guidelines, established in 2016, will be fully revised.
Follow-up management will be strengthened in line with legal revisions expanding the definition of tobacco from tobacco leaf to tobacco and nicotine. Policies to limit access to alcohol, promote moderation, develop dietary guidelines, and prevent obesity will also be pursued.
To prevent cervical cancer, eligibility for human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination will be expanded from females ages 12–26 (18–26 only for low-income groups) to include 12-year-old boys.
The government will analyze the risks of cancers in older adults, early-onset cancers, and second primary cancers to develop clinical guidelines and prediction models. Early-onset cancers diagnosed under age 50 have reportedly increased by about 80% worldwide over the past 30 years.
In screening, the cancer screening recommendations established or revised in 2015 will be overhauled. For lung cancer, the government will review expanding eligibility with reference to changes in overseas standards such as in the United States and Germany. Currently, the domestic standard targets high-risk individuals ages 54–74 with a smoking history of at least 30 pack-years.
For colorectal cancer, an annual fecal occult blood test is currently conducted for those age 50 and older, and colonoscopy is recommended if the result is positive. The government will push to introduce colonoscopy into the national screening program, reflecting the revised recommendations.
The revision includes recommendations to: screen for colorectal cancer with colonoscopy every 10 years for adults ages 45–74; and screen for colorectal cancer with a fecal immunochemical test every 1–2 years for adults ages 45–74.
Notifications for those who missed screenings among medical aid beneficiaries will be strengthened, and the safety and convenience management fee for cancer screening for people with severe disabilities will be raised. Criteria for follow-up care based on screening results will be established, and the use of AI for tasks such as reading assistance will be expanded.
Through the National Cancer Information Center, the government will provide the latest cancer information and activate a counseling channel where experts affiliated with the National Cancer Center respond. It plans to develop customized cancer information content for vulnerable groups and distribute it in connection with regional cancer centers.
◇ Regional cancer centers to be organized by zones… Pediatric cancer hubs expanded to six
In treatment, facilities and equipment at regional cancer centers will be enhanced, and a research consortium will be established with the National Cancer Center. The name will be changed to "zonal cancer center," and a system of re-designation based on performance evaluation will be introduced.
A pilot project for cancer care collaboration will also be promoted to establish a continuous care system within regions. Training for cancer specialists and the functions of regional cancer registries will be strengthened.
Pediatric and adolescent cancer hub hospitals will increase from five to six, with support for facilities and equipment. Given the importance of long-term follow-up after treatment for pediatric and adolescent patients, connections with the integrated support program for cancer survivors will be strengthened.
The government will continue to review health insurance coverage for new anticancer drugs and analyze the clinical effectiveness of next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based Precision Medicine.
An Innovative Anticancer Research Center will be established at the National Cancer Center, and the Korea Cancer Clinical Trial Network (KCON) will be built. By expanding investigator-initiated clinical trials, the plan is to improve domestic patients' access to treatment.
Key indicators will be developed to compare regional patterns of cancer care utilization. Using AI, the government will predict and analyze regional disparities and risks among vulnerable groups, and based on this, strengthen cooperative systems with local governments, regional cancer centers, and zonal integrated support centers for cancer survivors.
◇ "One in 30 survivors"… Post-treatment management and life-sustaining treatment systems to be refined
In post-management, the legal basis for integrated support projects for adult and pediatric cancer survivors will be established and advanced with customized programs by cancer type and life stage. A primary care linkage model based on a survivorship care plan (SCP) will also be developed.
For the life-sustaining treatment decision system, the number of institutions registering advance directives will be expanded and the forms will be revised. The timing for withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment, currently limited to the terminal stage, will be reviewed for expansion through social consensus.
Reimbursement for home hospice will be improved, and including the hospice counseling rate in the cancer adequacy assessment indicators will also be discussed. A standard service package covering symptom management, psychosocial support, family education, and end-of-life care, as well as a bereaved family support program, will be prepared.
◇ Cancer research to be advanced with AI and big data… "No sharing of raw data"
In research, a multimodal cancer dataset integrating multi-omics, such as genomics and proteomics, with pathology data will be built, and AI models specialized for cancer will be developed. The National Cancer Data Center will be expanded and reorganized into the National Cancer AI and Data Center.
Infrastructure will be established to enable joint research without sharing raw data, and data coordinators will be trained to support the integration and analysis of cancer data. Multi-center research on rare and intractable cancers will also be activated.
The government will pursue the discovery of pre-cancer biomarkers, advancement of liquid biopsy technologies, research on cell and gene therapies such as CAR-T, and the establishment of platforms to predict treatment resistance.
An integrated database linking the National Health Information DB with cancer registry statistics will be built to produce new statistics, and cancer registry variables, including TNM, will be diversified. The legal basis for monitoring anomalies such as excess cancer incidence will also be established.
◇ By 2030: 60% early diagnosis, 65% self-sufficiency in surgeries
By 2030, the government proposed key performance indicators of a 60.0% early diagnosis rate for the six major cancers, a 65.0% self-sufficiency rate for surgeries in the top 10 cancers, a quality-of-life score of 85 for cancer survivors, and the construction of 70,000 cancer-specialized multimodal data cases.
Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Lee Hyeong-hoon, chairperson of the National Cancer Control Committee, said, "While strengthening prevention and early diagnosis, we will organically link post-treatment management and research to enhance the effectiveness of cancer control policies," and added, "We will steadily implement policies that regions and patients can feel, leaving no blind spots in cancer care."