Cancer Incidence and Survival in Northern Ireland

New legislation designating the NICR as an official producer of statistics came into place 1 April 2012.

The yearly average of incidence cases (or rates) diagnosed 2006-2010 is presented as a stable estimate of incidence in Northern Ireland, or in different socio-economic groups. The release also updates cancer incidence trends and survival statistics 1993-2010.

Key facts and figures for cancer incidence and survival in Northern Ireland up to 2010 are presented below.

Cancer incidence trends

In addition to 3,000 cases per year of the common but not serious non-melanoma skin cancer, around 4,100 cancer cases in males and 4,000 in females were newly diagnosed each year in Northern Ireland during 2006-2010. The most common cancer site diagnosed in women was breast cancer, while for men it was prostate cancer. For women, 1149 of these new cases per year were breast cancer (an age-standardised incidence rate of 114 cases/100,000 females), and for men 965 are prostate cancer (104 cases/100,000 males);

The incidence of cancer is increasing for most cancer sites in Northern Ireland because of the ageing population as the risk for most types of cancer is greater in older people. However, after accounting for the ageing population, cancers rates are still changing for some sites. From 1993 to 2010 female-breast cancer rates increased by 1.1% per year, male-malignant melanoma rose by 2.7% and female-melanoma by 1.9%, female-lung cancer increased by 0.7% while male lung cancer decreased by 1.2%. Over the period 2003-2010, prostate cancer incidence rate increased by 2% per year.

Incidence rates by socio-economic deprivation

Incidence rates were higher in the least deprived areas than the most deprived for female-breast (121 new cases per 100,000 compared to 108/100,000), prostate (118 vs 95/100,000), and malignant melanoma (19 vs 11/100,000), whereas the opposite was the case with male-colorectal (63 vs 76/100,000), cervical (10 vs 16/100,000), and lung cancer (27 vs 83/100,000). If the lung cancer incidence rates of the most deprived areas were the same as in the least deprived, there would be 200 fewer cases of lung cancer in women and 240 fewer cases in men diagnosed per year.

Survival statistics updated

Five-year survival rates for patients diagnosed from 2001 to 2005 were as follows: breast (81.8%), colorectal (54.6%), prostate (83.2%), lung (10.8%). These survival rates have all shown improvement compared to patients diagnosed in the period 1993 to 1995, though only slightly for lung cancer. Improvements are expected to continue in the period 2006-2010.