The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated 10 July 2007:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent parliamentary question asking how many people in England have been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. (148771)
The latest available figures for newly diagnosed cases of cancer (incidence) are for the year 2004. They are published in the Annual Reference Volume, Cancer statistics: Registrations (Series MB1) available on the NS website:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=8843&Pos=1&ColRank=2&Rank=272
The data item, stage, was introduced in 1993 when the cancer registration minimum data set was established by the Department of Health. There remains much variation between the recording of stage that it is likely to reflect differences in what is meant by "stage" by the cancer registries, rather than real differences across England in what clinicians use to classify the patients. It is not therefore, possible to provide England data on cancer incidence broken down by stage.