Media backgrounder: The Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control

24  November  2006
TORONTO -

Cancer in Canada

Cancer presents a serious challenge to Canada. Approximately two in five Canadians will face a cancer diagnosis during their lifetimes. This year, more than 153,000 Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer and over 70,000 will die of the disease. Canada’s cancer challenge is expected to significantly increase due to the expected number of new cancer cases as a result of our country’s aging and growing population.

The National Cancer Institute of Canada has stated that in 2009, baby-boomers will hit the health system in significant numbers. As a nation, Canada has less than three years to prepare for the known rise in cancer cases.

The number of cancer cases is forecast to increase more than 60 per cent in the next decade if nothing changes. Cancer in the workforce will more than double over the coming 30 years, resulting in huge losses of lives, tax revenues of more than $248 billion, and wage-based productivity of more than $540 billion. This could significantly impact federal and provincial health care budgets, meaning fewer resources will be available for other health priorities and services. 

The Cancer Control Challenge

Although the cancer control community in Canada has many strengths, it is fragmented across the country. Patients do not have equal access to care and medical professionals do not have equal access to lifesaving techniques or information. Cancer control efforts differ significantly across provincial jurisdictions. In the absence of coordination, essential experience and information are being lost. 

New research results are announced frequently. The US National Library of Medicine tracks more than half a million journal articles and research reports every year. The impact of this will heighten over the next decade as research breakthroughs continue. Canada lacks the systemic capacity to share and manage these new breakthroughs effectively to the benefit of all Canadians. By smoothing out regional inequalities, addressing local weaknesses, and sharing information and experience across the country and the world, hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars can be saved.

Canada needs to put in place mechanisms that are able to move cancer evidence and knowledge quickly and easily across the country, reduce unnecessary suffering and limit the economic effects of cancer – including the impact on taxation, corporate profits and wage-based productivity.

Canada is falling behind other developed countries in meeting its growing cancer burden. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommended in 2002 and again in 2005 the development of national cancer control programs as the best means of reducing the incidence and impact of the disease and improving the quality of life of people with cancer. The WHO recommended a comprehensive and planned approach that will identify and implement priorities for action across the full spectrum of care from cancer prevention to treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care research. 

Since 1996, Ireland, Australia, United Kingdom, New Zealand and France have developed and funded comprehensive, integrated and coordinated national cancer control programs.

National cancer programs have proven to be effective. In the United Kingdom, cancer deaths have decreased by 10.3 per cent since the introduction of the NHS Cancer Plan four years ago. Elsewhere in Europe, reductions in cancer incidence and mortality rates have occurred since the introduction of the Europe Against Cancer program in the mid-1980s. Mortality rates, for example, decreased against projected numbers by 24 per cent in Luxemburg, 17 per cent in Finland and 15 per cent in Austria between 1985 and 2000 following the introduction of this program.

Canada’s Answer to Cancer Control

In response to the cancer challenge facing Canada, over the past seven years, the cancer community (including the Canadian Cancer Society, over 700 cancer experts and survivors, and with the full participation of federal, provincial, and territorial governments) has developed a “made-for-Canada” plan that respects provincial jurisdictions in health care. The Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control (CSCC) is focused on improving prevention programs, investing in cancer research, improving access to cancer information and knowledge, and reducing unnecessary suffering and dying from the disease. The model builds on the existing strength of provincial and federal government programs, and also on the excellence of global medical research.

The CSCC is:

• A network of experts that will oversee a sophisticated and accountable system of target setting, performance monitoring and decision-making;
• An integrated risk management and knowledge transfer system to gather and move cancer knowledge quickly and easily across Canada to assist the provinces/territories to better manage cancer locally;
• A tool that will allow provinces to plan for the increase of cancer patients set to hit the healthcare system over the next 30 years.

The Benefits

The Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control will encourage, support and facilitate collaboration and integration among cancer experts and leaders in Canada to achieve significant results. For individual Canadians this means:

• Fewer Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer: Up-to-date cancer prevention programs will be expanded
• More cancers will be detected early: Screening programs will be expanded and accessible
• More cancer patients will survive longer:   Timely, state-of-the-art treatment will be available no matter where a patient lives in the country
• Improved care when cancer cannot be cured: Better access to supportive and palliative care will be available and close to family and friends.

The Canadian Cancer Society is a national community-based organization of volunteers whose mission is to eradicate cancer and to enhance the quality of life of people living with cancer. When you want to know more about cancer, visit our website www.cancer.ca or call our toll-free, bilingual Cancer Information Service at 1 888 939-3333.

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For more information, please contact:

Kerstin Ring

Senior Manager, Communications

Canadian Cancer Society, National office

Phone:  (416) 934-5664

Alexa Giorgi

Bilingual Communications Specialist

Canadian Cancer Society, National office

Phone:  (416) 934-5338