Cancer screening

55% of women in the targeted age group of 50–74 participated in the BreastScreen Australia in 2017–2018, with more than 1.8 million screening.

Breast cancer mortality has decreased since BreastScreen Australia began, from 74 deaths per 100,000 women aged 50–74 in 1991, to 40 deaths per 100,000 women in 2018.

This report looks at the impact of COVID-19 on cancer screening over the first half of 2020, by presenting the number of screens between January and June 2020, and how these compare to the number of screens over the same period in the previous comparable year. The results show that the impact of COVID-19 was clearest for BreastScreen Australia, with 145,000 fewer screening mammograms performed in January to June 2020 compared to the same period in 2018.

COVID-19
This release includes data from the COVID-19 period.

This is the first report to monitor the National Cervical Screening Program since it introduced 5-yearly HPV tests in 2017. In 2018, among women aged 25–74, 1,795,395 had an HPV test, and 9% of all screening HPV tests performed were positive for HPV types that can cause cervical cancer.

55% of women in the targeted age group of 50–74 participated in the BreastScreen Australia in 2016–2017, with more than 1.8 million screening.
Breast cancer mortality has decreased since BreastScreen Australia began, from 74 deaths per 100,000 women aged 50–74 in 1991, to 41 deaths per 100,000 women in 2017.

This is the third report from an Australian-first project, combining screening, cancer, death, and HPV vaccination data to demonstrate the effects of screening and HPV vaccination on cervical cancer, precancerous abnormalities and cervical screening behaviour.
Screen-detected cervical cancers were less likely to cause death than those diagnosed in never-screened women, and HPV-vaccinated women were more likely to participate in cervical screening, and less likely to have a high-grade abnormality.

This report presents statistics on the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) using key performance indicators. Of those who were invited to participate in the NBCSP between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2017, 41% undertook screening. For those screened in 2017, 8% had a positive result warranting further assessment. One in 29 participants who underwent a follow-up diagnostic assessment was diagnosed with a confirmed or suspected cancer.

This is the last monitoring report (to 30 June 2017) for the previous ‘Pap test-based’ National Cervical Screening Program, which ceased on 30 November 2017. For women aged 20–69, participation was estimated at 54%–56%, 7 out of every 1,000 women screened had a high-grade abnormality detected before possible progression to cervical cancer, there were 9–10 new cases per 100,000 women, and there were 2 deaths per 100,000 women.

BreastScreen Australia aims to reduce illness and death resulting from breast cancer through organised screening to detect cases of unsuspected breast cancer in women, thus enabling early intervention. The BreastScreen Australia Data Dictionary is intended to be the authoritative source of data definitions used by BreastScreen Australia to meet the need for national consistency in data collected for program monitoring and evaluation, and for accreditation of BreastScreen Australia services.

This is the second report from an Australian-first project combining data from BreastScreen Australia, the National Cervical Screening Program and the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, focusing on breast cancer outcomes and screening behaviour in BreastScreen Australia. It was found that screen-detected breast cancers were less likely to cause death than never-screened breast cancers for all age groups eligible to screen in BreastScreen Australia, with analyses giving new insights into screening behaviour.

Around 55% of women in the targeted age group of 50–74 participated in the BreastScreen Australia in 2015–2016 with more than 1.7 million screening. Breast cancer mortality has decreased since BreastScreen Australia began from 74 deaths per 100,000 women aged 50–74 in 1991 to 44 deaths per 100,000 women in 2015.
 

This report compares mortality outcomes and cancer characteristics for two populations: those invited to screen in the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program in 2006–2010, and those of a similar age who were not invited in that time period.
Of the bowel cancer diagnoses, non-invitees had a 13% higher risk of dying from bowel cancer than invitees, and cancers in non-invitees were more likely to be more advanced.

Around 55% of women in the target age group of 20–69 took part in the National Cervical Screening Program in 2015 and 2016, with more than 3.8 million women screening.

Cervical cancer incidence and mortality have both decreased since the National Cervical Screening Program began in 1991—incidence decreased from 17 to 10 new cases per 100,000 women aged 20–69 in 2014 and mortality decreased from 4 to 2 deaths per 100,000 women aged 20–69 in 2015.

This report presents statistics on the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program using key performance indicators. Of those who were invited to participate in the program between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2016, 41% were screened. Of those, 8% had a positive result warranting further assessment, and 1 in 26 participants who had a follow-up diagnostic assessment was diagnosed with a confirmed or suspected cancer.

Cancer screening programs aim to reduce illness and death resulting from cancer through an organised approach to screening. This report presents participation data for 2014–2015 and 2015–2016 for Australia’s three cancer screening programs: the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, BreastScreen Australia, and the NationaCervical Screening Program. Data are presented by the 31 Primary Health Network areas and also Statistical Area Level 3 (SA3).

This report was first published on the MyHealthyCommunities website.  

Around 54% of women in the target age group of 50–74 took part in BreastScreen Australia, with more than 1.7 million women screening in 2014–2015.
Breast cancer mortality has decreased since BreastScreen Australia began from 31 deaths per 100,000 women of all ages in 1991 to 20 deaths per 100,000 women of all ages in 2014.

The National Cervical Screening Program aims to reduce incidence, morbidity and mortality from cervical cancer in Australia. A new National Cervical Screening Program is scheduled to commence on 1 December 2017—this new National Cervical Screening Program data dictionary is a key document that has been developed by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare with the assistance of state and territory cervical screening programs and other cervical screening experts, to support monitoring and reporting by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare for the new National Cervical Screening Program.

This report presents statistics on the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) using key performance indicators. Of those who were invited to participate in the NBCSP between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2015, 39% undertook screening. For those screened in 2015, 8% had a positive result warranting further assessment. One in 29 participants who underwent a follow-up diagnostic assessment was diagnosed with a confirmed or suspected cancer.