(2) what proportion of people in (a) Hertfordshire and (b) England developed breast cancer in each of the last three years.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell dated, 16 October 2007:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Questions asking how many people developed breast cancer (a) in Hertfordshire and (b) nationally in each of the last three years [157519], and what proportion of people developed breast cancer (a) in Hertfordshire and (b) nationally in each of the last three years [157520].
The latest available figures for newly diagnosed cases (incidence) of malignant neoplasm of breast are for 2004. Numbers and rates per 100,000 for 2002-2004 for England and the county of Hertfordshire are given in Table 1 below.
It is not possible to produce breast cancer rates for males in Hertfordshire due to the small numbers involved.
Registrations Rates 2002 2003 2004 2002 2003 2004 England Male 254 289 272 0.9 1.0 0.9 Female 35,149 37,283 36,939 117 123 121 Hertfordshire Male 8 7 7 — — — Female 621 711 667 103 114 104 1 Rates are directly age-standardised to control for differences in the age structure of populations between geographical areas over time. 2 Breast cancer is defined as code C50 in the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). 3 Rates were not calculated for males in Hertfordshire as the numbers of registrations were too low. Source: Office for National Statistics