Overview

Cancer is a major health problem in Australia, responsible for nearly 20 per cent of the total burden of disease as measured by death and disability. Each year, over 350,000 Australians are diagnosed with cancer (including nonmelanocytic skin cancer), around 34,000 people die from cancer, and cancer consumes about 6 per cent of the overall direct government expenditure on health (AIHW & AACR 2000).

Cancer control is all actions that reduce the burden of cancer in the community. It includes every aspect of care, from prevention and early detection to curative treatment and palliative care, all underpinned by the best scientific evidence available.

Priorities for Action in Cancer Control 2001–2003 offers some high priority items for coordinated national action. It aims to be incremental rather than comprehensive, building on the complex system of cancer prevention and care in Australia that already exists. It also aims to complement other national action in cancer control, including the National Health Priority Area initiative and the National Cancer Control Initiative. It represents a stage in a continuing process where priorities in cancer control will be reviewed on a regular (three to five yearly) basis.

The report:

• presents a goal, objectives and principles for cancer control, which are intended to guide existing and future action and should remain relevant indefinitely; and

• proposes a set of evidence-based, cost-effective priority actions for the short-term, which reflect the objectives and principles, and should be reviewed every three to five years.

The priority actions address more than two-thirds of the approximately 80,000 potentially fatal cancers diagnosed in Australians each year, and all nonmelanocytic skin cancer (for which about 270,000 Australians are treated each year).The priority actions address seven of the eight National Health Priority Area cancers: melanoma, non-melanocytic skin cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer (and other tobacco-caused cancers), and cervical cancer. Non-Hodgkins lymphoma (the eighth priority cancer) is not the subject of a specific priority action, although the development of clinical practice guidelines is recommended.

A number of the priority actions are likely to have benefits beyond cancer to other National Health Priority areas such as heart disease and diabetes - for example, tobacco control and increasing consumption of vegetables and fruit.

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