Cancer incidence predictions in the North of Portugal: keeping population-based cancer registration up to date.

Decision making towards cancer prevention and control requires monitoring of trends in cancer incidence and accurate estimation of its burden in different settings. We aimed to estimate the number of incident cases in northern Portugal for 2015 and 2020 (all cancers except nonmelanoma skin and for the 15 most frequent tumours). Cancer cases diagnosed in 1994-2009 were collected by the North Region Cancer Registry of Portugal (RORENO) and corresponding population figures were obtained from Statistics Portugal. JoinPoint regression was used to analyse incidence trends. Population projections until 2020 were derived by RORENO. Predictions were performed using the Poisson regression models proposed by Dyba and Hakulinen. The number of incident cases is expected to increase by 18.7% in 2015 and by 37.6% in 2020, with lower increments among men than among women. For most cancers considered, the number of cases will keep rising up to 2020, although decreasing trends of age-standardized rates are expected for some tumours. Cervix was the only cancer with a decreasing number of incident cases in the entire period. Thyroid and lung cancers were among those with the steepest increases in the number of incident cases expected for 2020, especially among women. In 2020, the top five cancers are expected to account for 82 and 62% of all cases diagnosed in men and women, respectively. This study contributes to a broader understanding of cancer burden in the north of Portugal and provides the basis for keeping population-based incidence estimates up to date.