FOI Reference: FOI-2024-1928
You asked
I am requesting 5 year and 10 year mortality rates for each stage (I-IV) of breast cancer (based on the Nottingham prognostic index) for women in the UK. If this data is available, can it please be broken down into age groups? In particular, I am interested in the 50-70 age group. Can the data please be from the last ten years if possible (i.e., 2013-2023)?
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We do not hold the data on deaths by stage of cancer. While ONS publishes data on deaths registrations for England and Wales by underlying cause of death, it does not include information on stage of prognosis as this is not included on death certificate.
We used to publish Cancer survival in England - adults diagnosed in cooperation with Public Health England (PHE), which used The National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service (NCRAS). NCRAS is population-based cancer registry for England. Responsibility for NCRAS was transferred from PHE to NHS Digital in 2021, so they can be contacted about cancer outcomes data, please see the NCRAS website for details.
For further data for Wales it could be useful to look at the Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit (WCISU), where they have also published a UK comparison dataset.
If you are interested in numbers of deaths registrations by sex and age where breast cancer was the underlying cause, please see information below.
We are responsible for the production of mortality statistics for deaths registered in England and Wales. This is driven by information collected from death certificates at death registration. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
Our mortality data comes from the information collected at death registration. All the conditions mentioned on the death certificate are coded using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). From all of these causes an underlying cause of death is selected using ICD-10 coding rules.
The underlying cause of death is defined by WHO as:
a) the disease or injury that initiated the train of events directly leading to death, or
b) the circumstances of the accident or violence that produced the fatal injury.
Mortality rates by underlying cause (ICD-10 code), sex and five-year age group for England and Wales, 2013 to 2022, are available from the NOMIS webservice. This data is not yet available for 2023. This data is usually published in the summer of the following year and for 2023 it will be uploaded to NOMIS later this year.
Please see the following instructions for how to use this service:
Select required dates (2013 to 2022)
Select the geography (England and Wales, regional or by local authority).
Select Age – All ages or 5-year age bands.
Select Sex – Total or Male/Female
Select rates – All deaths, rates or percentage of population for example.
Select cause of death (ICD-10 code search is available).
Select format (Excel or CSV for example)
The ICD-10 cause code for deaths relating to breast cancer is C50.