Concern at ‘significantly high’ Cork cancer rates

CONCERNS have been raised over the health of people in Cork after a new cross-border cancer study said the county has “significantly high” rates of more than half of all types examined.

The first All-Ireland Cancer Atlas, compiled by the National Cancer Registry (NCR) and the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry (NICR), has repeatedly placed Ireland’s second city in the danger category for a number of the life-threatening conditions.

In particular, it has noted that people living in the area are — per head of population — more likely to develop bowel cancer than those in any other county either side of the Irish border.

According to the major study, which examined cancer rates between 1995 and 2007 in the Republic and the North, Cork is suffering from long-term bowel, melanoma skin, non-melanoma skin, oesophageal, pancreatic and prostate cancers. In addition, it is also in the danger zone for all invasive cancers.

During the years examined, researchers found that the average number of diagnoses for each of the above conditions was 256, 74, 756, 45, 50, 254 and 1,798.

However, nearby Kerry, Waterford and Tipperary were not placed in the same category, with Waterford’s only concern relating to melanoma skin cancer (19 cases per year on average) and Kerry’s relating to non-melanoma (275).

Similar geographical spikes in the figures — which NCR director, Dr Harry Comber, said are “unexplained” and need to be examined — are also apparent in other parts of the country.

In Sligo and Leitrim, unusually high rates of bowel cancer (Leitrim), breast cancer (Sligo), prostate cancer (both) and all invasive cancers (Sligo) were recorded.

Excluding Cork and Wicklow, all counties in the Republic with “significantly high” rates of prostate cancer were in the west and north west, while lung and stomach cancers were largely confined to the east and north east.

Ten of the 13 cancer categories examined were considered to be serious problems in Dublin, with only leukaemia, pancreatic and oesophageal being excluded.

As a result of the varying levels, the NCR and the NICR are calling for detailed research to take place in order to clarify whether there are non-genetic or lifestyle reasons for these significant differences in a small population.

The major study has also repeated previous concerns that people living in urban areas are more likely to develop a form of cancer than their rural counterparts.

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