Registry & statistics

We collect details of all cancers diagnosed on the Victorian Cancer Registry. The law (Cancer Act 1982) requires this so the State has accurate figures. Data has been collected since 1982. All information is confidential and held under tight security.

Interactive graphs & reports

CanStats digests by topics

Statistics by local council

Average new cases per year (2003-07).

Victorian cancer slides

PowerPoint slides of 2006 statistics.

Cancer Survival Victoria 2007

Compares 2004 with earlier years.

Second Primary Cancers in Victoria

Risk of developing a second primary cancer.

For national statistics see Cancer in Australia: An Overview 2008.
For international statistics see CancerMondial.

What data is kept?

For each patient with cancer the registry collects:

name and address
date and country of birth
whether or not the person is of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent
details about the cancer
the treating hospital and doctor.

Personal details, such as names and addresses are needed to make sure records are correct and not duplicated.

How is data registered?

When any hospital diagnoses or treats someone with cancer it must, by law, send details to the registry. This also applies to pathology services and cancer screening registers.

What's the data for?

To monitor the number of annual new cases and deaths from cancer and publish regular CanStats reports.
Publish occasional reports on particular cancers or aspects of cancer.
Add Victorian figures to the national cancer database.
Help in planning services for the control of cancer (e.g. screening programs).
Help plan and improve services to care for cancer patients.
Measure the quality and effectiveness of cancer treatments.
Measure how well cancer control programs are working.
Develop education programs (e.g. sun protection for schools and Victorians working outdoors).
Provide data for research.
Help with studies to find out what causes cancer.

Who can access the data?

Regular reports are available to the public (without names of patients or any other identifying information).

More details are given to the Victorian Department of Human Services, local governments, hospitals, doctors and researchers. This information doesn't include patient names.

Identified information (containing patient's names and other details) is available to:

The doctor or health institution who originally provided it.
The Federal Government's Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) for compiling national statistics (which don't include any identifying information and are available to the general public).
The Family Cancer Centres (of the Family Cancer Service) to assess the risk of cancer to a person by verifying cancers in their family.

Any person can contact the registry to ask whether we hold information about them and/or to access their records.

Researchers can ask for identified information about cancer patients (see forms and procedures below) but all requests must be approved by our Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC). This is a group of independent experts whose job is to weigh the public interest of the research against the individual interests in privacy. Permission will only be given if the project meets strict conditions, including:

It must be scientifically sound.
It must be likely to contribute to the control of cancer or to the improvement in the care of cancer patients.
There are adequate safeguards for the rights of the patients identified and the confidentiality of the information. HREC must also be satisfied that it is really necessary that identified information is used.
The researchers must undertake to only use the information they've been granted access to. They must also agree to protect the confidentiality and privacy of the information to the same degree as the Victorian Cancer Registry itself.

Download:

Victorian Cancer Registry procedures and forms for data access (320kb)

Victorian Cancer Registry procedures and forms for data access (Zip file of Word docs 147kb)

More details

If you'd like to find out more, contact the Director of Information Systems on (03) 9635 5318. Any complaints should also be addressed to this number. If your issues can't be resolved, call the Office of the Health Services Commissioner (HSC) on (03) 8601 5200 or 1800 136 066 (toll free). The HSC is an independent, impartial statutory authority with responsibility for health services and the privacy of health information in Victoria.