Lung cancer survival rate increasing in Northern Ireland

Survival rates for men, however, have also gone up but not enough to be classed as “statistically significant” by the report’s authors.

The report, which outlines official statistics on lung cancers diagnosed in Northern Ireland from 1993-2020, was published on Tuesday morning.

It shows that lung cancer rates have declined overall for men, but have gone up amongst women.

Over the last five years the average number of lung cancer cases per year increased among men by 4% from 673 cases in 2011-2015 to 697 cases in 2016-2020.

Among women the number of cases per year increased by 20% from an annual average of 549 cases in 2011-2015 to 657 cases in 2016-2020.”

The Queen’s University report authors state: “After removing the effect of changes in the age and size of the population over time, lung cancer incidence rates among males decreased by 8% between 2011-2015 and 2016-2020.

“In contrast, lung cancer incidence rates in females increased by 10% between 2011-2015 and 2016-2020.”

On lung cancer survival rates, it found a significant improvement between 2006-2010 and 2011-2015 among women with five-year survival increasing from 11% to 17%.

For men, the difference was smaller with an increase from 10.1% in 2006-2010 to 12.2% in 2011-2015

A separate report has also been compiled to examine the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on lung cancer.

The report details how incidence and survival has changed between April-December 2018-2019 and 2020.

It found that there were fewer cases being diagnosed, but slightly more deaths.

The number of cases of lung cancer decreased by 7% from 1,029 per year in 2018-2019 to 952 in 2020.

The first coronavirus case in Northern Ireland was not diagnosed until February 2020 and the first death until March 19.

For the lung cancer report, the authors excluded the first quarter of each year to examine whether there had been a change in the number of lung cancer deaths.

The number of deaths from lung cancer showed a slight increase, by 0.9%, from 778 per year in 2018-2019 to 785 in 2020.

The chief executive of the charity Cancer Focus NI, Richard Spratt, welcomed the report.

“This latest report illustrates the impact of covid in delayed diagnosis of lung cancer during 2020,” he said. “There was an overall 7% drop in diagnosis.The reduction in the number of people with an early diagnosis is especially stark with 18% fewer people diagnosed at Stage I and a 4% increase in Stage IV diagnoses.”

Mr Spratt added: “This is a clear indication that covid pandemic discouraged significant numbers of people from accessing an early diagnosis.”