Cancer is one of the most common causes of death in the European Union. In 2009, the European Commission adopted the "Communication on Action Against Cancer: European Partnership". This Communication defines several objectives to reduce the burden of cancer; evaluation of measures to implement this goal is critically dependent on computation and dissemination of accurate and comparable data on cancer incidence, prevalence, survival and mortality statistics.
For this purpose, the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) in its scientific and technical role and in close collaboration with the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE), is supporting the development of a "European Cancer Information System" (ECIS), building on existing experience, competence and cooperation of cancer registries associated to the European Network of Cancer Registries (ENCR), together with other key stakeholders in the cancer information domain.
The aims of the ECIS include:
- monitoring the cancer burden (and its changing trends over time) across the regions of Europe;
- assessing the magnitude of the cancer burden and its likely future evolution;
- illustrating the effects of health policy interventions aimed at reducing the overall cancer burden;
- establishing a reference base for cancer epidemiological research;
- providing information for further research on possible underlying causes of cancer as well as best practices on prevention, treatment and control;
- providing information and educational resources to the general public to explain the variations observed in different populations.
The ECIS web application and website is conceived and designed by the JRC for accessing and visualizing cancer burden indicators derived from population-based cancer registry data across Europe. It consists of three main areas, reporting national incidence and mortality estimates for 2022, historical incidence and mortality indicators at registry level up to the latest year available, and estimated indicators of survival 2000-2007.