A new, dynamic version of NORDCAN, the analytical tool and database that enables the comparison of cancer statistics for the Nordic countries, is now available. This is a proud day for the cooperation between the Association of Nordic Cancer Registries (ANCR), International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the Nordic Cancer Union (NCU).
Long history of collaboration
The Nordic Cancer Registry collaboration stretches all the way back to the early 1950s. One of the fruits of this collaboration is the NORDCAN web tool, established as a pilot in 2002 and with the first full version in 2003, with both IARC as developer and host of the web tool and NCU as financial support as crucial partners.
Even though many changes and improvements has been done over the years, the main framework of the tool has remained the same and now appears more and more outdated and soon no longer possible to use to fit the future needs of NORDCAN. Continuing the fruitful collaboration between ANCR, IARC and NCU, a process for a complete makeover of the NORDCAN web tool was initiated in 2019, and the result is already present at https://nordcan.iarc.fr.
What is new in NORDCAN 2.0?
NORDCAN 2.0 still contains the same, high quality database from the Nordic countries as before and currently displays statistics on incidence and mortality. The overall look of the web tool is modernised and new tools, like the D3 JavaScript library, is used for better and more dynamic data visualisation. The new web tool also allows for more flexibility, giving better opportunities for the further development of comparable cancer statistics in the Nordic countries in the future.
Future work in NORDCAN
This launch of NORDCAN 2.0 is only the beginning of the planned NORDCAN update. Apart from continuously fixing small bugs and refining the data visualisation, future work will focus on replacing all parts of the old NORDCAN web tool, including statics on prevalence, survival and predictions. At the same time the NORDCAN work group focus on further development to keep NORDCAN as up to date and relevant as possible. Current initiatives involve, for instance, new ways of doing data harmonisation, enrichment and aggregation. An important milestone is the planned update of the NORDCAN database in May/June, including cancer statistics for 2017 and 2018.
Read IARC press release about NORDCAN 2.0 here https://www.iarc.fr/news-events/iarc-and-partners-launch-nordcan-2-0-comparable-cancer-statistics-for-the-nordic-countries/
Visit the old NORDCAN-version here: http://www-dep.iarc.fr/nordcan.htm