More Queenslanders are being diagnosed with cancer and living with the disease than ever before.
New Cancer Council statistics released on Monday revealed one in two Queenslanders would be diagnosed with a cancer before age 80, while one in seven would die from it.
Chief executive Jeff Dunn said the growing incidence and prevalence of cancer in the state was primarily due to an increase in population and an ageing population.
“In terms of national comparisons, we sit pretty well with the rest of the country,” Professor Dunn said.
Lung cancer was the biggest killer in Queensland in 2013, accounting for one fifth of the 8651 cancer-related deaths, followed by bowel, prostate, breast and pancreatic cancers.
“Smoking today equates to disease burden 20, 25 years down the track,” Prof Dunn said.
“What we will see over time, and this is in decades, is a reduction in incidence first and then mortality rates in lung cancer.”
Prof Dunn said more Queenslanders were also surviving a cancer diagnosis today than any other time in history.
Across all cancer types, the average five-year relative survival rate is 69.9 per cent.
“On balance, cancer survival rates in Queensland are terrific,” he said.
The number of men diagnosed with cancer has decreased by one per cent per year since 2008, while the number of women diagnosed with the disease has increased by 0.6 per cent per year since 2004.
Prof Dunn said the issue remained that people diagnosed with cancer in the regions tended to do less well than their counterparts who were treated in the state’s southeast corner.
“While survival rates are improving, we know that one third of all cancers diagnosed every year can be prevented,” he said.