The National Cancer Registry (NCR) was established in 1986 and is South Africa’s main cancer statistics source; it collates and analyses cancer cases diagnosed in pathology laboratories (both public and private) nationwide and reports annual cancer incidence rates stratified by sex, age and population groups. Although the NCR is a pathology based cancer registry, resulting in under reporting of many malignancies, the published data has been used extensively to inform development of the draft national policy guidelines for cancer prevention and control (DOH,2002), to inform cancer research and for teaching purposes. These data are also used by many other sectors with a keen interest in cancers to inform their policy decision-making processes and/or intervention programs.

In February 2009 the NCR was incorporated into the National Institute for Occupational Health. The NCR currently has a staff of 7 who receive approximately 80,000 cancer notifications annually. Approximately 60,000 are new cases forming the basis of which the cancer incidence is estimated. The remaining reports are duplicate entries and are excluded from the yearly estimates.

Since 2001, patient confidentiality issues and lack of legislation have led to difficulties in receiving data from the private pathology groups, resulting in severe delays in published reports. The National Department of Health is addressing the situation and draft regulations on cancer registration have been drawn up.