Cancers diagnosed at early stage

What this data shows:

New cases of cancer diagnosed at stage 1 and 2 as a proportion of all new cases of cancer diagnosed

How the data is gathered:

Cases of cancers diagnosed include invasive malignancies of breast, prostate, colorectal, lung, bladder, kidney, ovary, uterus, non-Hodgkin lymphomas, and invasive melanomas of skin.

The indicator captures both completeness of staging data and early stage diagnosis. Improvements in this indicator are likely to be the result of improved staging coverage, so inferences about changes over time can only be made if it is clear that staging completeness did not change significantly. It is possible to only include staged cancers in the denominator though this may lead to gaming whereby only cancers that are diagnosed early are staged.

The case mix of cancers diagnosed will impact on the proportion of early stage cancers. For example breast cancer is far more likely to be diagnosed at an early stage than lung cancer, so areas with a high proportion of breast cancer will have better outcomes on this indicator in comparison with areas with a high proportion of lung cancer.

Not all cancers are included in the indicator. It is possible for an area to have 70% of the cancers included in the indicator staged, but not to have 70% of all cancers staged.

Improvement in recording of stage continues to be part of the work programme for the National Cancer Registration Service. The % of cases staged continues to improve year on year.

Numerator: Cases of cancer diagnosed at stage 1 or 2, for the specific cancer sites, morphologies and behaviour: invasive malignancies of breast, prostate, colorectal, lung, bladder, kidney, ovary, uterus, non-Hodgkin lymphomas, and invasive melanomas of skin Denominator: All new cases of cancer diagnosed at any stage or unknown stage, for the specific cancer sites, morphologies and behaviour: invasive malignancies of breast, prostate, colorectal, lung, bladder, kidney, ovary, uterus, non-Hodgkin lymphomas, and invasive melanomas of skin

Data Source:

"Cancer Analysis System, National Cancer Registry, Public Health England http://www.ncin.org.uk/publications/survival_by_stage

Data Period:

2019 (indicator updated and published annually)

Further Information:

Further information on the purpose, background and construction of this indicator is at https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/ccg-auth/ - indicator 122a

Method of data analysis

The value is the numerator divided by denominator, expressed as a percentage.