Gan kokuchi means telling patients that they have cancer. An article in Gendai Business says that it used to be normal in Japan to tell the family the name of the disease and to hide the facts from the patient. Cancer notification in Japan, it says, began in the 1990s.
A study at Kanazawa University Hospital found that in 1988, most doctors in gastroenterology did not tell patients even about early-stage cancer. By 1996, about 70 percent disclosed early-stage cancer, and by 2005 disclosure was almost complete.