Cancer prevalence in France: time trend, situation in 2002 and extrapolation to 2012

Cancer prevalence is a basic indicator of the cancer burden in a population and essential to estimate the resources needed for care of cancer patients. This paper provides a prevalence estimate for 2002 and 2012 in France and an assessment of the trend in prevalence over the period 1993-2002.

Incidence and survival data from French cancer registries were used to estimate specific 5-year partial prevalence rates that were then applied to the whole French population.

In 2002, the 5-year partial prevalence was over 427,000 in men and 409,000 in women. The most frequent cancer site among men was prostate (35% of the cases) and breast in women (45% of the cases). In 2002, in France, more than 3.5% of men over 74 years old are alive with a prostatic cancer diagnosed within 5 years. The increase in the number of cases between 1993 and 2002 was about 40% and was mainly due to prostate and breast cancers. The demographic variations alone induce an increase of the number of prevalent cases of 75,000 among men and 54,500 among women if both incidence and survival are considered as stable during the period 2002-2012.

This study uses a large amount of information from cancer registries which makes it possible to assess the cancer burden. Five-year prevalence is very sensitive to changes in incidence and demographic changes. Prevalence has to be estimated regularly in order to ensure accurate medical care meets demand.