Most regions outside Seoul, Daegu and Busan are unable to handle cancer surgeries locally, driving more patients to seek treatment in the capital.
Rep. Park Yong-gap of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee, released data on the 28th from the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the National Health Insurance Service showing regional self-sufficiency rates for surgeries on the 10 most common cancers. Between 2021 and 2025, the average self-sufficiency rate for operations on colorectal, lung, stomach and liver cancers, among others, was highest in Seoul at 93.4%, followed by Daegu at 81.6% and Busan at 74.7%.
North Gyeongsang Province ranked lowest at 8.6%. Sejong stood at 13.9%, North Chungcheong Province at 29.4%, Gwangju at 36.7% and South Chungcheong Province at 36.9%.
By region, the rate was 71.8% in the greater Seoul area, which includes Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon. It fell to 39.2% in the Honam region covering Gwangju and Jeollanam-do, and to 35.3% in the central region encompassing Daejeon, Sejong, North Chungcheong Province and South Chungcheong Province.
At each of the so-called "Big 5" hospitals — Seoul National University Hospital, Samsung Medical Center, Asan Medical Center, Severance Hospital and Seoul St. Mary's Hospital — patients from outside the capital area accounted for more than 30% of cancer cases.
At one of those hospitals, 71,593 of the 146,537 cancer patients treated in 2025, or 48.9%, came from outside the greater Seoul area, while 74,944 were from within it. That means nearly half had traveled to the capital for care.
"Patients choose to travel to Seoul because hospitals there have extensive surgical experience and advanced equipment, but this places both a physical and financial burden on patients and their families," Park said. "The government needs to support national university hospitals in building cancer treatment capacity that can be completed within each region, and it should pursue construction of a cancer hospital in the central region, where self-sufficiency rates for the 10 major cancer surgeries are low."
The number of cancer patients in South Korea continues to rise. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the National Cancer Center, 288,613 new cancer cases were reported in 2023 — 151,126 men and 137,487 women — up 7,296 from a year earlier. That is 2.8 times the 101,854 cases recorded in 1999, the first year such statistics were compiled.
