ICBP Transition Phase

"The ICBP Transition Phase marks an exciting period in our evolution, involving deep dives, dissemination of knowledge and new research and scoping. Over the next two years, the ICBP looks forward to driving greater international profile and visibility in the areas of cancer practice, policy and outcomes. Our team looks forward to developing communications and driving efforts to translate insights across each of the ICBP jurisdictions. By providing robust international benchmarking data , we hope to continue to encourage discussions and positive engagement in the policy sphere and support insights-driven improvements in cancer outcome."

Prof Mark Lawler, ICBP Chair

"Our work on behalf of the International Cancer Benchmarking Project will support critical assessment of the impact of the pandemic on cancer-related services. We will be assessing and condensing the mitigation and recovery strategies that have been employed in different countries - and thus this work will inform discussions on best practices for services recovery."

"This work also links closely with that of the COVID-19 and Cancer Global Modelling Consortium (CCGMC) - which brings together the global modelling community to support decision-making in cancer control both during and after the crisis. Our focus on the longer-term, as well as the shorter-term, recognises that recovery strategies will be required as countries move beyond the acute phase of the crisis."

Karen Canfell, Lead researcher on a review of health system and clinical policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and their impact on cancer control across jurisdictions in the ICBP

"We are at the beginning of an exciting collaboration with the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership working in a partnership with data scientists, clinicians, academics, policy makers from jurisdictions around the globe. ICBP has always been agile to adapt to the most current and relevant global issue, but its spirit will remain in the commissioned work that we'll lead which will provide robust evidence based on strong surveillance framework to inform how COVID-19 has impacted cancer services hence cancer burden to plan on mitigation strategies and strengthen our health system for future pandemics."

Isabelle Soerjomataram, Lead researcher on  ICBP-COVID19: Assessing the COVID-19 impact on cancer in the ICBP

"The ICBP team are small, but mighty, and over these past 3 months I have seen how the partnership brings about international collaboration which I have witnessed through workshops, publications, commissioned research and government consultations. I really appreciated being given my own project on age disparities in cancer survival, which I was able to develop and direct based on my research. It was enlightening being on ‘the other side’ of cancer, as my background is in lab-based research. Previously I had only considered why people get cancer and how best to treat them from a biological view point, now I was looking at how society and policy play a role and, it was so much more interesting. From the project I found that there was great variation in survival for older aged patients between countries and at different cancer sites. Some of this could be attributed to differences in treatment of older patients and differences in cancer policies for older patients. My report highlights the need for shared best practice internationally, and the development and implementation of policies to address the needs of older cancer patients."

Remi Looi-Somoye, Research intern, reviewed age disparities in ICBP evidence and data

Lung Cancer kills more people than breast, prostate and colon combined. Lung Cancer Screening offers the best evidence based way to dramatically lessen that burden. Internationally we are collectively helping to build these programs to radically improve the course of lung cancer patients. This event highlights that collective wisdom and leverages it to all its effect. I look forward to watching the fruits of this labour change the landscape of lung cancer.

Christian Finley, Professor, Departments of Surgery, Expert Lead, Canadian Partnership Against Cancer. Clinical Lead, Ontario Lung Cancer Screening Program

I’m a Vice President with the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer (CPAC) and have represented Canada on the ICBP Programme Board since 2020.  For many years before that, I led the System Performance and Analytics teams at CPAC whose role included coordinating ICBP related data collection and analysis activities for Canadian jurisdictions.  More recently with ICBP, I’ve taken on the role of Program Board Sponsor for the Cancer Intelligence and Data Infrastructure (CIDI) Network whose mandate is to to convene experts from across the ICBP to identify how we can build more innovative and sustainable data collection and analysis infrastructure for international comparisons.  The ICBP has already proven its value in helping to identify and examine variations in cancer outcomes between peer country systems.  I’m looking forward to elevating this value further through the production and dissemination of more timely, relevant and actionable knowledge that directly informs improvements in cancer care policies and practices in partner jurisdictions.

Rami Rahal,  Vice President, Cancer Partnership Against Cancer  

I’m a public health physician who’s spent most of my consultant career working on cancer intelligence – informing improvements in primary prevention and quality of care for cancer.  It’s a mixture of epidemiology, statistics and public health medicine. 

I’ve been aware for many years of the influence that the ICBP has had on cancer control policy in the UK and I’ve more recently been involved in drafting publications.   I’m co-chairing the new Cancer Intelligence and Data Infrastructure Network. 

David S Morrison, Director of the Scottish Cancer Registry, Public Health Scotland 

My involvement is relatively new in ICBP although our state has been a  partner for quite a few years. There have been great benefits to our cancer control agenda with the opportunity to understand how we compare across jurisdictions and learn from others experience.  

We have participated in many of the past projects and use the international comparisons in our routine presentations. These show the cascade of how we compare internationally, followed by how we compare at a state level and we then include our local data of how we sit across our districts. This informs some of our quality improvement activities. We are always keen to look towards other areas for insights into how we may improve our programs and activities. 

I look forward to continuing to learn how the cancer services in  other countries are recovering following the last few years through the pandemic, and to explore the potential for future projects that aim to highlight and address areas of inequity.  

Shelley Rushton, Director of Cancer Services and Information, Cancer Institute New South Wales 

Within my role at the Western Australia Department of Health I have been very enthusiastic in supporting ICBP projects since the Survmark-2 module. Our ongoing collaboration and partnership with the ICBP project recognises and highlights favourable cancer outcomes for patients in our jurisdiction and is reflective of our excellent health system and the clinicians supporting it.

Articles published by ICBP have helped shape projects such as the collection of stage at diagnosis in the registry and assisted in articulating benefits collecting and linking data points along the screening, diagnostic, treatments and survivorship patient continuum. System improvement in data collection will enable participation in deeper dive studies and further understand where and why variation exists in reported cancer outcomes.  

Western Australia has been relatively unscathed by the COVID-19 pandemic and now maintains one of the highest vaccination rates in the world and I am interested to engage with the COVID study to understand what impact the pandemic had on cancer diagnoses in WA relative to other participating jurisdictions. 

Richard Trevithick, Principal Data Management Officer and Data Custodian for the Western Australian Cancer Registry.