Cancer incidence and mortality : Malta and the European Community compared

Abstract

In September 1993 the National Cancer Registry at the Department of Health Information (DHI) was accepted as an Associate Member of both the International Association of Cancer Registries (IACR) and of the European Network of Cancer Registries (ENCR). One result of this association was that the DHI was provided with the latest age-standardized incidence and mortality rates for the 12 European Community (EC) countries, in a book called "Facts and Figures of Cancer in the European Community", that was published last year by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). On the initiative of one of the Medical Officers working at the Malta Cancer Registry, the methodologies used for the IARC book were applied to the best available cancer incidence and mortality data for Malta, i.e. the 1992 data, in order to give comparable age-standardised rates. This report is mostly limited to cancers which occurred frequently in 1992 and which were hence amenable to statistical study.