The State of Cancer Control in Australia 1987-2007: Changes in cancer incidence and mortality

Abstract

In this section, eight cancer types are outlined briefly as a way of contextualising the analysis and highlighting cancer types that are important in Australia – either because of their public health programs or because of large incidence or mortality percentage changes – to illustrate how policy, programs or other changes may have affected these measures. These have been selected based on a combined list of the top five cancer sites for males and females in incidence and mortality according to IARC GLOBOCAN 2008 working estimates, and cancer types of national importance in Australia.5 Firstly, trends in incidence and mortality for the cancer type are described – including data from the IARC GLOBOCAN project to illustrate global incidence and mortality working estimates for 2008 in individuals aged 74 years and under. Additionally, the most current survival data available for Australia from the AIHW are also provided.3 The AIHW survival data are presented to provide context rather than to facilitate a comparison between survival trends and our findings. However, the AIHW data were only available for all ages combined. The relative survival and five-year conditional relative survival data reported by the AIHW show the probability of surviving a given number of years, provided that an individual has already survived a specific amount of time after diagnosis.3 A brief overview of current prevention strategies, screening programs and treatment methods in use globally and in Australia are also provided. The results of our analysis for the specific cancer type are then presented and discussed.