Registry shows cancer is on the rise and more are surviving it
Cancer survival rates have improved significantly in the last 20 years.
The latest figures from the National Cancer Registry, show survival rates up from 72% to 81% for breast cancer and from 69% to 91% for prostate cancer.
However, the incidence of cancer in Ireland is also on the rise, with more than 30,000 cases of the disease in Ireland every year.
Dr Harry Comber, head of the National Cancer Registry, says the causes of increased cancer rates are long established.
Dr Comber said: "Some of the well known factors in getting cancer are being overweight and obese, which has been known for quite some time to be a risk factor for cancer. Also sunlight exposure, which again has been on the increase quite a lot over the last 20 to 30 years, and alcohol consumption, which as everybody knows has also increased.
"So all of these are factors that are well known in every country behind the increase in cancers and this increase in cancer is not peculiar to Ireland."
