Historical cancer data

Note: Historical cancer tables are now published within the Cancer web tool. Please refer to the tab called "Historical cancer datasets" for the most recent data. 

These tables contain cancer registration data from 1948–2020, and cancer deaths data from 1948–2018, for selected cancers by sex.

Data is presented as numbers and age-standardised rates, for male, female and total population. Cancer deaths tables will be updated to as this data becomes available.

The data was extracted on 29 Aug 2022.

At the time of this data extraction there were 33 deaths awaiting coroners' findings with no known cause and 803 deaths provisionally coded awaiting coroners' findings, between 1996 and 2018.

Data is sourced from the New Zealand Cancer Registry and the New Zealand Mortality Collection, as well as the Cancer: New Registrations and Deaths publications, Mortality and Demographic data publications and Medical Statistics of New Zealand for data relating to 1948–1960.

In this edition, data for a selection of cancers was extracted and recalculated for the years 1996–2020 to reflect ongoing updates to data in the New Zealand Cancer Registry and the New Zealand Mortality Collection (for example, following the release of coroners’ findings) and the revision of population estimates and projections following each census.

For this reason, there may be small changes to some numbers and rates from those presented in previous publications and tables.

We have quality checked the collection, extraction, and reporting of the data presented here.

However, errors can occur. Contact Te Whatu Ora if you have any concerns regarding any of the data or analyses presented here, at data-enquiries@health.govt.nz