Cancer survival rates lower in Mid-West than national average, new figures show
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The five-year survival rate for colorectal, lung, and female breast cancer is lower in Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary than the national average, according to the National Cancer Registry of Ireland.
The Cancer Registry has produced, for the first time, an analysis of cancer cases in the six new HSE regions.
It is hoped the new data will inform decisions about future cancer services and policy-making.
The registry also found that, nationally, non-melanoma skin cancers make up almost one in four cancer cases — 26% for men and 20% in women.
Lung cancer causes one in five cancer deaths in Ireland, according to the figures, making it the deadliest cancer.
About one in 23 people, at the end of 2022, either had cancer or were former cancer patients.
An average of 44,000 tumours were diagnosed and 9,797 people died from invasive cancers between 2020 and 2022.
The new HSE regions include HSE South West, covering Cork/Kerry, and HSE Mid-West covering Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary.
The Cancer Registry identified that 15.6% of cancer cases occurred in people living in the South-West and 8.6% of cases in Mid-West counties.
“The proportion of people diagnosed during 2009-2018 and surviving five years following diagnosis was lower than the national average for those living in the Mid-West for colorectal, lung, and female breast cancer,” the report said.
For breast cancer, the survival rate in the Mid-West was five percentage points lower than the national survival rate.
For lung cancer, the survival rate was 4.7 percentage points lower and for bowel cancer it was 4.1 percentage points lower.
Dublin South East had the highest rate of prostate cancer.
At national level, when skin cancers were excluded, the most common cancers were prostate and female breast cancer.
Among men, the next most common cancers were colorectal (bowel), lung cancer, melanoma of skin as well as head and neck cancer.
Among women, the next most common were lung cancer, colorectal cancer, melanoma of skin, and uterine cancer.
Professor Deirdre Murray, director of the National Cancer Registry and professor of epidemiology at University College Cork, said the data could be used for cancer service planning, evaluation and policy-making.
“While geographic variation must always be interpreted with care, this data can point to important opportunities for improvement across cancer care from prevention, early diagnosis, and screening, to access to services and treatment,” she added.
Dr Robert O’ Connor, board chairman of the registry, said the data covers the covid-19 pandemic and aftermath.
It shows while the pandemic affected registration of cancer cases in 2020 and to a lesser extent in 2021, by 2022 numbers were “within the projected range”.