Breast, colorectal, prostate and lung cancers were the most common in 2020, and, following the usual pattern, breast cancer prevailed in women and prostate cancer in men, according to the National Oncological Registry (RON) released today.
“Not many variations were expected in the most common types of cancer compared to previous years. These data meet the usual pattern. What stands out in this RON is the total number of new cases, which is lower than expected, something that reflects the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic,” RON coordinator Maria José Bento told the Lusa agency.
In 2020, more than 52 thousand new cases were registered in Portugal, 9% less than in 2019.
Breast cancer stands out with 7.504 new cases, followed by colorectal cancer with 6.680. 5.776 new cases of prostate cancer and 4.737 of lung cancer were registered.
In women, the most common cancer is breast cancer (7.425), followed by colorectal cancer (2.757) and non-melanoma skin cancer (1.625).
New cases in men are more prevalent in the prostate (5.776), colorectum (3.923) and lungs (3.289).
In Portugal, cancer is the second cause of death, responsible for more than 28 thousand deaths annually, and in 2020 it was responsible for 23% of all deaths.
Also according to RON 2020, lung cancer was responsible for 15,4% of cancer deaths.
Colorectal cancer caused 13,3% of cancer deaths, while stomach cancer caused 7,9% of deaths.
In women, breast cancer (16,1%) was the main cause of cancer mortality, while in men, it was lung cancer (19,4%).
Breast cancer, in women, was followed by colorectal cancer (13,4%) and lung cancer (9,7%) as the main causes of cancer mortality.
In men, after lung cancer, the cancer that caused the most deaths in 2020 was colorectal cancer (13,2%) and prostate cancer (11,3%).
The RON is a registry based on a single electronic platform, the purpose of which is to collect and analyze data on all cancer patients diagnosed and/or treated in mainland Portugal and the autonomous regions.
This registry includes all tumors in the population residing in Portugal and allows monitoring of the activity carried out by institutions, the effectiveness of organized screenings and therapeutic effectiveness, epidemiological surveillance, research and, in conjunction with Infarmed, monitoring the effectiveness of medicines and medical devices.
Safeguarding that legal deadlines are being met, the coordinator explained to Lusa why data from 2024 is now being known in 2020, pointing to the need to “mature” information that “is very complex”.
«The RON is fed with information from all public and private hospitals. There is a time that the pathology itself takes. The diagnosis is not always very immediate and then treatments follow. It's a lot of information with a certain degree of complexity and a lot of care needs to be taken in the way it is recorded,” he said.
Maria José Bento, who is also director of the Epidemiology service at the Portuguese Institute of Oncology (IPO) in Porto, stressed that «information on the incidence of cancer at national level must be made available every three years in relation to the date of diagnosis of pathology”.
«And that deadline is being met», he said, adding the conviction that this period of time «is important to purify the information».
«These deadlines are well defined. It would be difficult to do this faster and it's not really interesting. Oncological disease does not have outbreaks or peaks. It has been increasing, but it is relatively stable,” he concluded.
The specialist took the opportunity to make appeals to both the population and political decision-makers.
«Adopt healthy lifestyles such as not smoking, exercising, visiting your family doctor frequently, adhering to screenings. And screenings must be encouraged and the organization must be extended to the entire country. There are still territorial differences in coverage and organization and that doesn't make sense,” she concluded.
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