Age standardized rate of cancer incidence, by selected sites of cancer and sex, three-year average, census metropolitan areas.

Nova Scotia has the highest cancer incidence rate of any province in Canada, followed by Newfoundland and Labrador, and Ontario. However, Nunavut has the highest cancer mortality rate of the provinces. In Nunavut there are around 310 deaths from cancer per 100,000 population, compared to a rate of 218 deaths per 100,000 in Newfoundland and Labrador.

New cancer cases

As of 2023, there were around 513 new cancer cases in Canada per 100,000 population. The most common types of cancer in Canada include lung and bronchus cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer. Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women, while prostate cancer is the second most common type among men. Men have slightly higher rates of lung and bronchus cancer and colorectal cancer.

Cancer mortality

Lung and bronchus cancers have the highest mortality rate of any cancer in Canada, followed by colorectal and pancreas cancer. Men in Canada have around a five percent chance of dying as a result of lung and bronchus cancer. The lifetime probability of dying from any cancer type for males in Canada is around 24 percent.

Number and rate of new cancer cases diagnosed annually from 1992 to the most recent diagnosis year available. Included are all invasive cancers and in situ bladder cancer with cases defined using the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Groups for Primary Site based on the World Health Organization International Classification of Diseases for Oncology, Third Edition (ICD-O-3). Random rounding of case counts to the nearest multiple of 5 is used to prevent inappropriate disclosure of health-related information.

Age-standardized rate of new cancer cases for selected primary sites of cancer, by sex, on a three-year average basis.

This table contains 33048 series, with data for years 2000/2002 - 2010/2012 (not all combinations necessarily have data for all years), and was last released on 2016-03-16. This table contains data described by the following dimensions (Not all combinations are available): Geography (36 items: Total, census metropolitan areas; St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador; Halifax, Nova Scotia;Moncton, New Brunswick; ...), Sex (3 items: Both sexes; Males; Females), Indicators (2 items: Mortality; Potential years of life lost), Selected causes of death (ICD-10) (17 items: Total, all causes of death; All malignant neoplasms (cancers); Colorectal cancer; Lung cancer; ...), Characteristics (9 items: Number; Low 95% confidence interval, number; High 95% confidence interval, number; Rate; ...).

BackgroundResearch has shown that people from higher socioeconomic status (SES) have better hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) survival outcomes, although no such research has been carried out in Canada. We aimed to assess if an association between SES and HCC survival existed in the Canadian context. Methodology/Prinicpal FindingsWe conducted a population-based cohort study linking HCC cases identified in the Ontario Cancer Registry between 1990 and 2009 to administrative and hospital data. Logistic regression and chi-squared tests were used to evaluate associations between SES (income quintile) and covariates. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate survival. Sequential analysis of the proportional-hazards models were used to determine the association between SES and HCC survival controlling for potential prognostic covariates. During the period 1990–2009, 5,481 cases of HCC were identified. A significant association was found between SES and curative treatment (p = 0.0003), but no association was found between SES and non-curative treatment (p = 0.064), palliative treatment (p = 0.680), or ultrasound screening (p = 0.615). The median survival for the lowest SES was 8.5 months, compared to 8.8 months for the highest SES group. The age- and sex-adjusted proportional-hazards model showed statistically significant difference in HCC survival among the SES groups, with hazard ratio 0.905 (95% confidence intervals 0.821, 0.998) when comparing highest to lowest SES group. Further adjustments indicated that potentially curative treatment was the likely explanation for the association between SES and HCC survival. Conclusions/SignificanceOur findings suggest that a 10% HCC survival advantage exists for the higher SES groups. This association between SES and HCC survival is most likely a reflection of lack of access to care for low SES groups, revealing inequities in the Canadian healthcare system.

Rank, number of deaths, percentage of deaths, and age-specific mortality rates for the leading causes of death, by age group and sex, 2000 to most recent year.