The number of Canadians Living with Cancer is Rising

Because of increases in the detection of cancer and improving survival, the number of Canadians living with cancer is rising.

Of all persons living in Canada on January 1, 2005, 695,000 had been diagnosed with an invasive cancer at some point in the previous 10 years. Some individuals experienced more than one invasive cancer over the 10-year period, with the number of cancer cases totalling 723,000.

The 695,000 people who had been diagnosed with cancer during the 10-year period represented 2.2% of the Canadian population, or about 1 in 46 people. Overall, 1 in 111 women had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and 1 in 118 men had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

The most common cancers were breast, prostate and colorectal cancer, which together accounted for just over half of all cases on January 1, 2005, that had been diagnosed in the previous decade.

About one-fifth (20.5%) of all cases in the population were breast cancer, and 18.7% were prostate cancer. These two cancers were the most common owing not only to the relatively high numbers of cases diagnosed, but also to favourable survival rates.

Colorectal cancer was the third most common, at 12.9%. It was followed by lung cancer (5.1%), bladder cancer (5.0%), non-Hodgkin lymphoma (4.1%) and skin melanoma (4.1%).

Among men still living on January 1, 2005, prostate cancer accounted for the largest share of cases diagnosed within the 10-year period (38.2%). The next most common were colorectal cancer (14.0%), bladder cancer (7.5%) and lung cancer (5.4%). Among women still alive, the corresponding most common cancers were breast, accounting for 40.0% of cases, colorectal (11.9%), uterine (7.2%) and lung (4.9%).

The most prevalent cancer in people aged 20 to 39 was thyroid. The most common cancer in the age groups 40 to 49 and 50 to 59 was breast. And the most common cancer in the older age groups 60 to 69, 70 to 79, and 80 or older was prostate.

As noted by cancer researchers in other countries, estimates of the prevalence of cancers diagnosed within 2, 5 and 10 years are useful for resource allocation and cancer care planning.

Source: Statistics Canada, March 18, 2009

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