The National Cancer Registry Ireland (NCRI) Data Resource Profile has been published in the ESMO Real World Data and Digital Oncology journal, providing a comprehensive overview of NCRI’s national cancer data and its role in supporting cancer surveillance, research, health service planning and policy development in Ireland.

NCRI is the State agency responsible for collecting and analysing data on cancer in Ireland. Established by the Minister for Health in 1991, the Registry began collecting data in 1994 from public and private healthcare providers and has since developed an extensive national resource covering almost three decades of cancer diagnoses.

The newly published Data Resource Profile outlines how NCRI data is collected, coded and quality assured, as well as the scale and scope of the information held by the Registry.

As of March 2026, NCRI held information on 1,131,145 tumours diagnosed in 883,967 individuals between 1994 and 2025.

For the period 2019 to 2023, an average of 36,078 invasive cancers, including non-melanoma skin cancer, were diagnosed each year. The most commonly registered tumour sites during this period were non-melanoma skin cancer, prostate, breast, lung and colorectal cancer.

NCRI gathers information from a range of sources, including hospital pathology laboratories, radiotherapy units, medical records and death certification systems, providing near-complete national coverage and supporting long-term follow-up.

The Data Resource Profile also highlights the high quality of NCRI data, which undergoes rigorous quality assurance to ensure information is accurate, complete and comparable over time and with international cancer datasets.

NCRI’s national cancer data provides an important evidence base for understanding cancer incidence, patterns and outcomes in Ireland. It supports cancer surveillance, research, health service planning and policy development, helping to inform efforts to improve cancer prevention, diagnosis, treatment and outcomes.

The publication of the Data Resource Profile provides researchers, policymakers, healthcare professionals and others with a detailed overview of the NCRI dataset and its potential to support cancer research and evidence-based decision-making in Ireland.

🔗 Read the final open-access article