Cancer in Wales 1992-2006: A Comprehensive Report

 

Over the fifteen year period 1992-2006 in Wales, incidence of all cancers (excluding non melanoma skin cancer) has increased in both males and females by 22% and 12% respectively.  However, if the European Age Standardised Rates (EASR) are compared, these figures are increases of 3% for males and 4% for females, indicating that although there has been a large increase in numbers, the increase is mainly down to an increase in diagnosis in the elderly.  A man has an approximate 1 in 3 chance of being diagnosed with cancer before his 75^th birthday, compared with an approximate 2 in 7 chance for women.  There are a number of Local Health Boards (LHBs) in Wales that have significantly higher or lower rates compared with Wales as a whole, especially for the later five year period 2002-2006.  Merthyr Tydfil has the highest incidence rates for both males and females for this time period.  The number of deaths has slightly decreased by 1% in males and by 2% in females in Wales.  However, there has been a larger decrease in the EASR by 19% for males and 12% for females.  Approximately 3.7% of the male population in Wales had been previously diagnosed with cancer up to 20 years ago but was still alive as at 31^st December 2006.  This figure was 4.1% for females.  Five year relative survival has increased from 1992-1996 to 1997-2001 by nearly 7 percentage points (to 41.5%) for males and by over 3 percentage points (to 50.5%) for females closing the “survival” gap between males compared with females in Wales.  However, relative survival by deprivation for all cancers shows that there has been no improvement between the affluent quintile compared with the most deprived quintile when comparing between the two periods 1992-1996 and 1997-2001.  Comparing World Age Standardised Rates with other countries in the World, Wales is in the top third of those presented in this report for incidence.

 

 

 

 

The Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit have published updated prevalence statistics in Wales for various cancer sites in Wales and followed up to the end of December 2007 (published 4th March 2009).