Prediction of cancer mortality in the Nordic countries in 2005: effects of various interventions.

Rough estimates of the effect in 2005 of various preventive measures aimed at reducing cancer mortality in the Nordic countries were made using the American software CAN*TROL. The effect was measured as the percentage reduction in cancer mortality in 2005. The calculations were performed for changes in the smoking, dietary and sunbathing habits of the population (primary prevention), earlier diagnosis (secondary prevention) and improvements in survival resulting from better treatment (tertiary prevention). The calculations incorporate many assumptions, some of them more firmly based than others, such as uniformity of incidence trend in all the Nordic countries and also concerning the causality of various relations. For lack of evaluated Nordic data, we have used American figures concerning stage distributions and stage-specific relative survival rates. These assumptions should be borne in mind when drawing conclusions from the results obtained. The results show that there is a potential of up to several tens of percent for reducing total cancer mortality by the year 2005.