Population-Based Cancer Surveillance and Epidemiology
Summary
Population-based cancer surveillance is the systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of data on cancer incidence, survival and mortality within defined populations. It relies primarily on registries that record all new diagnoses in a given area, enabling calculation of age-standardised rates of incidence and death. This epidemiological framework underpins our understanding of geographic and temporal trends, risk factor distributions and the impact of prevention and treatment interventions. Integrated with demographic, clinical and pathological information, surveillance data guide health policy, resource allocation and the evaluation of screening and early-detection programmes. Ensuring data quality—through completeness, validity, comparability and timeliness—is essential for robust analyses, while advances in statistical modelling and geospatial mapping have improved estimates in regions with partial coverage. Key metrics such as incidence–mortality ratios, years of life lost and disability-adjusted life years offer comprehensive measures of disease burden, informing global collaborations aimed at reducing cancer incidence and mortality.
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Population-Based Cancer Surveillance and Epidemiology publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in population-based cancer surveillance and epidemiology across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Population-based cancer registry: A systematic data collection system that records all new cancer cases in a defined population.
Incidence: The number of new cancer cases occurring in a specified period, often expressed per 100 000 population.
Mortality: The number of deaths attributed to cancer in a specified period, usually standardised by age.
Age-standardised rate: A rate adjusted to a standard population age distribution to allow comparisons across populations with different age structures.
Disability-adjusted life year (DALY): A measure combining years of life lost through premature mortality and years lived with disability.
Completeness: The extent to which all eligible cancer cases in the target population are captured by a registry.
Timeliness: The interval between the occurrence of a cancer event and its recording in the surveillance system.
References
- Cancer statistics for the year 2020: An overview. International Journal of Cancer (2021).
- Cancer Incidence, Mortality, Years of Life Lost, Years Lived With Disability, and Disability-Adjusted Life Years for 29 Cancer Groups From 2010 to 2019. JAMA Oncology (2022).
- An assessment of GLOBOCAN methods for deriving national estimates of cancer incidence. Bulletin of the World Health Organization (2016).
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