ABSTRACT
It is well recognized that there is a wide range in the incidence and mortality of all cancers within Europe. All countries in Europe have reliable mortality statistics and these have been collated in, for example, the compilations published by Segi (eg Segi (1980) which gives the mortality data for 1975). In 1953 the campaign began to make cancer a notifiable disease in all countries, and these data were collected and tabulated by cancer registries. In some countries (eg the Scandinavian countries, UK, Ireland) the whole population is covered by either a single registry (eg Denmark) or a series of registries (eg Scotland which is divided into 5 registration areas). In most European countries there is incomplete coverage and incidence data are only available for defined regions (eg in Spain there are registries in Tarragona, Zaragosa and Navarra; in Hungary there are registries in Szabolcs county and in Vas; in Romania registration is only available for the Cluj region). In order to determine incidence data for whole countries, Doll (1969) used reliable incidence data where available and calculated the incidence from mortality data for the other countries (using a formula which took account of the survival rates for the different cancer sites). The same basic procedure was used by Jensen et al (1990) when he calculated the incidence of cancer at various sites for all EC countries.
