Faroes have lower incidence of cancer than other Nordics

There are indications that the Faroes have a lower cancer incidence rate ratio than the other Nordic countries.

This is revealed in new figures from the NORDCAN collaboration, where the Nordic countries all report anonymised cancer data by standardised methods.

Despite the lower incidence rate, the Faroes appear to have the same cancer mortality rate ratio as the other Nordics, says Dr Marnar Fríðheim Kristiansen, who has written a PhD thesis on the topic.

“There are two possible reasons for this disparity: either the diagnostic standards in the Faroes may be slightly lower than in other Nordic countries, or we have an under-registration of cancer cases in the Faroes,” he explains.

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“I hope our study sheds light on the need for continued validation efforts of cancer registries so that the data in the Faroese cancer registry is as valid and accurate as possible.

The study, titled “Cancer in the Faroe Islands from 1960-2019 – incidence, mortality, and comparisons with the other Nordic countries” has been published in Acta Oncologica, a peer-reviewed medical journal of oncology and the official journal of the five Nordic oncological societies.

Read the Faroese version of this article here.

More Faroese News in English.