Potential years of life lost due to premature mortality from cancer in Karlovac County (Croatia), 2006-2010.

The aim of this paper was to estimate cancer burden in the Karlovac County using potential years of life lost due to cancer and contribute to setting priorities in cancer control at the local level. Potential years of life lost (PYLL) is an important public health mortality indicator that goes into the category of social indicators and has a great role in the process of health care planning in defining priorities for the prevention of premature death. In this paper PYLL is defined as the number of years of life lost by persons who died in the age of 1-75. In the period 2006-2010 there were 4118 death in Karlovac County in the 1-75 age group which makes 48,204 potential years of life lost, where 33,856.5 (70.24%) PYLL referred to men, and 14,347.5 (29.76%) PYLL to women. Cancer was responsible for the largest proportion of premature death (33.17%), in which 62.90% of premature death referred to men and 37.10% to women. Lung cancer was the leading cause of premature death due to cancer for men (31.04% of PYLL due to cancer) and the breast cancer for women (17.95% PYLL due to cancer). In the observed period cancer caused the shortening of the average life span of 11.9 years, out of which the biggest loss was caused by melanoma (18.7 years). Population health measures based on PYLL are useful for measuring and monitoring the impact of local efforts to reduce premature mortality.