Vol. 472 No. 1
121 Mr. D. Ahern asked the Minister for Health the current position regarding the cancer register; the plans, if any, there are for a comparative study between this register and the cancer registers in northern Ireland and in Great Britain; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22397/96]
Limerick East): The National Cancer Registry Board was established as a statutory body in 1991. It is the successor body to the Southern Tumour Registry and was established on the basis that it would expand coverage to the entire country. The board commenced full national registration on 1 January 1994.
I am advised that the registry has now completed collection and checking of information on cancer cases and deaths for 1994; that this data is in the process of analysis and that a report will be published early next year. I am advised that this report will have information on, inter alia, incidence and mortality rates for all cancers, the age and sex distribution of cases, their geographical distribution by county and within Europe, and the treatment of patients. The registry plans to issue a report on the 1995 data in the summer of 1997, and annually thereafter.
The registry has a close working relationship with the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry and a number of collaborative studies on cancer incidence and mortality are planned when data from Northern Ireland becomes available. Once sufficient data has been collected, the registry plans to study the geographical distribution of cancer risk on an all-Ireland basis.
The forthcoming registry report will provide comparative incidence data for a wide range of cancers for Ireland and 25 other European countries, including Scotland, England and Wales. The registry plans to include data for Northern Ireland in 1997, if available by then.
The National Cancer Registry Board has close contacts through its membership of the Cancer Registries Collaborative Group and the UK Association of Cancer Registries, with the regional registries of England, and with the Welsh and Scottish National Cancer Registration systems. The registry is working with those bodies to make the data of all registries in the UK and Ireland more comparable.
