The ACD contains data about all new cases of cancer diagnosed in Australia since 1 January 1982, excluding basal and squamous cell carcinomas of the skin.

Cancer is a notifiable disease in all Australian states and territories. The relevant legislation requires certain individuals and organisations to notify all new cases of cancer to the jurisdiction's central cancer registry. These registries supply data annually to the AIHW, which cleans and standardises the data, notifies the registries of inter-state duplicates and produces the Australian Cancer Database.

Collection details

Temporal coverage

from 1 January 1982 to 2015 for all states and territories except NSW for which temporal coverage is up to 2014

Geographical coverage

National and state 

Data availability

  • Publications
  • Summary tables published in electronic form
  • Statistics
  • Client specified tables on request which may be subject to data provider approval (charges apply)
  • Restricted unit record access subject to Ethics Committee approval and/or the agreement of all relevant data custodians in all states and territories (charges may apply)
  • Restrictions and limitations govern the availability or use of other data in this holding.

Data scope

The Australian Cancer Database (ACD) is a data collection of all primary, malignant cancers diagnosed in Australia since 1/1/1982.

The following exclusions apply to the ACD:

  • Tumours diagnosed as benign or of borderline malignancy are not included.
  • Only the first occurrence of a cancer is included. That is, recurrences and metastases are not included.
  • Basal cell carcinomas (BCC) and squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) of the skin are not included because they are not notifiable diseases.
  • National data on non-melanoma skin cancers, besides BCC and SCC, are complete from 2001 only.

Data on myelodysplastic syndromes and some myeloproliferative cancers are complete from 2003 only.

Methodology

Admin data

Metadata information and data quality statement (DQS)

Australian Cancer Database 2011 DQS

External links and information 

About Australian Cancer Database

Contact

[email protected]