Case-mix Adjusted Percentage of Cancers Diagnosed at Stages 1 and 2 by ICB in England, 2022

In England, there were 244,178 cancers diagnosed with a valid stage in 2022, which was 75% of all stageable cancers. This is in line with 243,617 cancers diagnosed with a valid stage (78% of all stageable cancers) in 2021. Of all cancers with a valid stage diagnosed in 2022, 55% were diagnosed at stages 1 and 2. This is a higher proportion than for every year between 2013 and 2021 where 54% were diagnosed at stages 1 and 2, with the exception of 2020 where the proportion was 52%.  

Comparisons between geographies using unadjusted values of the indicator may be misleading because of differences between the underlying population characteristics and distribution of risk factors. Populations within ICBs consist of a differing mix of people in terms of their characteristics such as age, gender, and deprivation.

Case-mix adjustment is a process which accounts for differences in these population characteristics when calculating outcomes (e.g. percentage of cancers diagnosed at early stage). This allows for fairer comparisons of outcomes between ICBs that have populations with different characteristics negatively or positively associated with the performance indicator.

There are 16 cancer groups included in the ‘case-mix adjusted percentage of cancers diagnosed at stages 1 and 2’ indicator, with 219,671 cancers diagnosed with a valid stage in 2022 in England. This is in line with the 218,239 cancers diagnosed with a valid stage in 2021 in England.

The overall case-mix adjusted percentage of cancers diagnosed at stages 1 and 2 was 56% for the most recent 3-year period (2020 to 2022). This is the same as for all previous 3-year periods since 2013 to 2015.

During 2020 to 2022, the range of case-mix adjusted percentage of cancers diagnosed at stages 1 and 2 across the 42 ICBs is 53% to 60% which is smaller than the unadjusted range (51% to 60%). This shows that some of the variation in the percentage of cancers diagnosed at stages 1 and 2 between ICBs is associated with the population characteristics.

When assessing trends in ICBs over individual years, the focus should be on overall trends rather than year-on-year variation. This is because the number of cases diagnosed each year in each ICB is relatively small and the estimates are therefore less stable.