Alberta has second-lowest rate of cancer mortality in country: data

New data from the Alberta Cancer Foundation shows the province’s cancer survivability rates are trending in the right direction.

The ACF says thanks to improvements in screening and research techniques, less and less people are receiving terminal diagnoses.

Alberta is no longer leading the country in cancer mortalities, and now have one of the lowest rates in the country, second only to Ontario.

The province has seen consistent improvements in five-year survival rates from patients being diagnosed between 1992 and 1996 at 54.5 per cent to 63.3 per cent for those diagnosed between 2013 and 2017.

That’s according to Alberta Cancer Foundation CEO, Wendy Beauchesne, who attributes this improvement to breakthroughs in research and screening.

“Even just last year, the Alberta government lowered the age for breast cancer screening from 50 to 45, in doing so, anticipated in diagnosing probably 200 to 300 more cancers annually,” she said.

The province also punches well above it’s weight when it comes to clinical trials, according to Beauchesne.

“Alberta is actually double, in many cases, the national average in the amount of clincal trials we’re able to offer to patients,” she said. “So that’s pretty significant.”

Now, 89 per cent of Albertans diagnosed with breast cancer survive, along with 91 per cent of Albertans diagnosed with prostate cancer.

The province is also seeing breakthroughs in research into more treatment-resistant cancers like non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and bladder cancer.

“One of the areas that’s been emerging as a great way to treat treatment-resistant cancers is in the area of immunotherapy which has really risen in the last decade or so as being promising way to treat cancers,” Beauchesne explained. “There’s so much room for optimism.”

She notes that while she’s optimistic about the future of cancer treatment in Alberta, there is still plenty of work to be done on advancing early screening initiatives.