Australia’s most common cancer – non melanoma skin cancer – on the rise
Non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) is by far the most common cancer diagnosed in Australia, but we do not know just how common it is, according to a report jointly released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) and Cancer Australia.
“In 2008, around 434,000 people will be diagnosed with one or more non-melanoma skin cancers in Australia, and data from 2006 show that there were over 400 deaths in that year from NMSC,” said Professor David Roder, commenting on the report.
“But unlike other cancers, NMSC is not reportable by law to cancer registries.
“As a result, incidence and prevalence statistics are not routinely available,’ he said.
The AIHW report, Non-melanoma skin cancer: General practice consultations, hospitalisation and mortality, is intended to fill some of the gaps in data availability, by analysing the impact these cancers have on doctors’ workloads, hospital inpatient admissions and mortality.
It found that there were an estimated 950,000 GP visits per year (between April 2005 and March 2007) for NMSC.
As a proportion of all GP consultations, male visits for NMSC were almost double that of females.
Hospital stays for NMSC more than doubled between 1993-94 and 2006-07, from 35,833 to 79,792.
Again, rates for males were much higher, with hospital rates almost 75% higher than for females.
As with many other cancers, non-melanoma skin cancer mortality rates were significantly higher in outer regional areas, and significantly lower in the most socio-economically advantaged areas.
