The long-term incidence trend showed a slightly increased
risk of cancer for men until the year 2000 taking into account the change
in age structure. The age-adjusted incidence rate of 2018 (570 new cases
per 100,000 men) is clearly below those of 2000 (722
per 100 000 men). For women a more stable trend was observed. Their
age-standardised incidence rate slightly decreased from 432 per 100
000 women in 2008 to 405 in 2018. Based on age-standardised rates, the
risk of being diagnosed with cancer was 1.4 times higher for men than
for women in 2018. The most common cancer types diagnosed in 2018 were
lung (4 985 cases), colorectal (4 563 cases), female breast (5 565 cases)
and prostate cancer (6 018 cases).
Since 1994, the most common type of cancer for men
has been prostate cancer with 153 cases per 100 000 (6 018 cases) in
2018. Previously, lung cancer was the most frequently diagnosed cancer
in men; the year at which lung cancer was surpassed by prostate cancer
varies greatly between provinces. In 2018, 2 925 men were diagnosed
with lung cancer (74.7 per 100 000) and 2 569 men with colorectal cancer
(67.6 per 100 000). The increased incidence of prostate cancer can be
largely attributed to the increased number of preventive medical check-ups
and early detection (‘screening effect’). The most common cancer
site in women continues to be the breast with 117.2 cases per 100 000
in 2018. Over the past ten years, the age-standardised incidence rate
of breast cancer has remained stable. The second malignancy in women
is lung cancer followed by colorectal cancer with 2 009 and 2 060 cases
in 2018, respectively.
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