Cancer data

What cancer data are available?

• AIHW cancer and screening publications
  Comprehensive reports on a range of cancer topics, including the flagship publication, Cancer in Australia: an overview 2012, as well as more detailed reports on specific cancers and statistics.
• Australian Cancer Incidence and Mortality (ACIM) books
  Excel workbooks which provide summary statistics and raw data for major cancers for incidence from 1982 and mortality from 1968.
• Pivot table (3MB XLSX)
  Excel pivot table that contains information about all cancers rather than just the major ones but not in as much detail as in the ACIM books. Due to the number of rows required for the raw data, this pivot table is only available in Excel 2010.
• Data cube
  Same data as the pivot table but in a different interface. 
• Cervical cancer and safety monitoring guidelines

Sources and scope of cancer data 

The major source of cancer incidence data is the Australian Cancer Database which contains records of all primary, malignant cancers (except basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas of the skin) diagnosed in Australia since 1982.

The major source of cancer mortality data is the National Mortality Database which contains, amongst other information, records on all deaths where cancer was the underlying cause of death in Australia between 1968 and 2007.

Cautionary note about small numbers 

The number of cases and/or deaths from a specific type of cancer for a given sex, age-group and year can be very small. Due to a large degree of year-to-year statistical fluctuation in these small numbers, great care should be taken when assessing apparent differences involving small numbers and measures based on small numbers.

Other sources of data about cancer 

• General Record of Incidence of Mortality (GRIM) books
  Excel workbooks containing mortality data on selected causes of death by age and sex for each year.
• National hospital morbidity data cubes
  interactive data cubes containing information on the principal diagnoses, procedures and diagnosis related groups of patients admitted to Australian hospitals. The source of these data is the National Hospital Morbidity Database.
• External resources with information about cancer can be found in cancer and screening links.

Requesting further data

The AIHW is able to make available a broad range of cancer statistics subject to a scientific and ethical review process. For information on requesting these data, see requesting additional cancer and screening data.