Ask where to find the best cancer hospital in Korea, and Asan Medical Center’s (AMC) name comes up almost immediately. But international patients researching cancer treatment in Korea are usually looking for more than a reputation and rankings. They want to know what actually happens to patients who are treated there. Asan Medical Center’s Cancer Institute in Seoul publishes stage-by-stage survival curves to inform patients of real world clinical outcomes.
Each year, the AMC Cancer Institute releases an Outcomes Book, covering treatment volumes, survival rates, surgical outcomes and other indicators of how patients actually fared, broken down by cancer type, stage, and treatment.
For international patients considering cancer treatment in Korea, the report provides a detailed look at the scale of AMC’s oncology program. It is very useful for anyone comparing options for cancer treatment in Korea against hospitals back home, as it offers something rare: verifiable numbers instead of promotional claims.
Here is what the 2025 edition shows.
One of Korea’s Highest-Volume Cancer Centers
Asan Medical Center is the largest cancer treatment center in South Korea by patient volume. According to Korea’s Central Cancer Registry, roughly 288,000 people were newly diagnosed with cancer nationwide in 2023. Of those, about 37,800 – 13.1% of the entire country’s new cancer cases, sought treatment at Asan Medical Center. Its cancer services account for around one million patient visits annually.
The scale is significant. High-volume cancer centers tend to produce more consistent outcomes, simply because their surgeons and oncologists perform certain procedures far more often than lower-volume hospitals do. AMC’s excellence is also reflected in independent rankings: Newsweek’s World’s Best Specialized Hospitals has placed Asan among the global top four oncology hospitals, and in its broader World’s Best Hospitals ranking, Asan ranks #1 in South Korea and 22nd worldwide.
The Cancer Institute itself is organized as 19 distinct, disease-specific centers (see diagram below), from stomach and colorectal cancer to hematologic malignancies and rare sarcomas. All operating under a single, multidisciplinary model that Asan pioneered in Korea back in 2006. In practice, that means a patient’s case is reviewed by experts across surgery, medical oncology, radiation oncology, and pathology together to determine the most effective treatment strategies.
Cancer Survival Outcomes by Stage
The most useful section of the Outcomes Book, for anyone comparing treatment options internationally, is the 5-year survival data reported by cancer stage. A few figures stand out:
Breast cancer — 94.1% overall 5-year survival, ranging from 99.2% at Stage 0 down to 41.8% at Stage IV. Even patients treated at the more advanced Stage III reached an 85.2% five-year survival rate after surgery.
Stomach cancer — 95.6% survival at Stage I, falling to 7.3% at Stage IV, with an 89.1% overall postoperative survival rate. Stomach cancer is frequently diagnosed late in Western countries, where it is less common and screening is less routine — Korea’s high case volume and early-detection culture show up directly in these numbers.
Endometrial cancer — 90.9% overall 5-year survival; cervical cancer — 80.3% overall; ovarian cancer — 67.7% overall, notably above Korea’s national average of 65.0% for the same disease.
Brain tumors — an average 88.4% five-year survival rate across benign and malignant tumors combined, with glioblastoma — one of the most difficult cancers to treat anywhere in the world — at a 22.5% three-year survival rate.
Hematologic cancers (leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma) — a 56.3% five-year survival/cure rate. It’s worth noting this is the most modest figure in the book, and Asan publishes it anyway. For a hospital marketing itself on outcomes, disclosing the harder numbers alongside the strong ones is itself a signal of how the data was collected.
What "5-year survival by stage" actually tells you
For patients evaluating hospitals from abroad, raw survival percentages are only useful if you know what’s being measured. Asan’s Outcomes Book is explicit about its methodology for each statistic: the time period covered (most figures track patients diagnosed between 2010 and 2019, allowing a full 5-year follow-up), the exact numerator and denominator used, and the exclusion criteria, such as removing patients with multiple primary cancers or those who began treatment elsewhere before transferring to Asan.
A hospital that only publishes an “overall survival rate” without stage breakdowns can quietly benefit from treating a higher proportion of early-stage, better-prognosis patients. Asan’s stage-by-stage reporting removes that ambiguity and provides considerably more useful information for prospective patients.
Why this matters for patients considering treatment abroad
For an international patient researching the best cancer centers worldwide, the core question that is top of mind is usually: “given my specific diagnosis and stage, what outcomes can I realistically expect here, and how does that compare to my options at home or elsewhere in Asia?”
Asan’s Outcomes Book is designed to answer this question. It doesn’t just say the hospital treats a lot of cancer patients, it clearly shows cancer by cancer and stage by stage, what happened to them. It is rare to see this level of transparency published and this must be praised. Combined with independent recognition from Newsweek’s global hospital rankings and a treatment infrastructure spanning 19 dedicated centers, it makes a data-backed case for why Asan Medical Center has become a top ranked hospital in Asia and a preferred choice for many international patients seeking medical treatment in Korea.
For international patients researching some of the best cancer hospitals in South Korea, Asan Medical Center is a hospital worth considering, particularly for complex cancer cases where specialist experience, multidisciplinary care and access to advanced treatment options are important.
At Medical Travel Market, we provide support to international patients seeking treatment abroad. If you would like to inquire about cancer treatment at Asan Medical Center, please get in touch with our medical travel team for a consultation.
