Clinicians and health care professional have been given access to the most up-to-date national data on all things cancer with the launch of a new interactive website.
Cancer Australia's National Cancer Control Indicators (NCCI) contains data on tumour types, which can be filtered by population group, sex, age and socio-economic status.
It also holds data on prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, research and outcomes, allowing clinicians to see trends on incidence and survival rates over time.
It was established in collaboration with the country's key 'data custodians', including the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Government Department of Health.
Cancer Australia CEO, Dr Helen Zorbas says access to the information is critical to understanding the impact of cancer in Australia.
"NCCI is a unique, dynamic national resource that, for the first time, brings together trusted data to better illuminate Australia's cancer landscape and inform where our efforts can be best placed," she said.
Radiation oncologist Associate Professor Chris Milross says the "incredibly powerful" resource will enable clinicians to better educate patients and provide the latest data on survival outcomes.
"A lot of text books of course are written internationally and they give us international data and that's useful but this resource sets us up to provide national data to our patients," he said.
"You can hand on heart reassure Australian cancer patients that this is a very serious and genuinely motivated attempt to provide clinicians with the best data possible."
The website also broke down "healthcare data silos" that have existed in Australia, Prof Milross added.
