11.2 International variations in incidence

Male and female rates of bladder cancer in NI were among the lowest of the 21 developed countries examined, with RoI also having a comparatively low incidence in men but not women (Figure 11.2). Female rates were much lower overall than male rates, and varied somewhat less. Spain had the highest rate of bladder cancer among men, while Denmark had the highest rate among women. However, caution needs to be exercised in making international comparisons of bladder cancer incidence, as classification of the disease with regard to malignant and non-malignant cancers is not consistent across countries.

Figure 11.2 Estimated incidence rate per 100,000 in 2008 for selected developed countries compared to 2005-2007 incidence rate for RoI and NI: bladder cancer
females	males
Source: GLOBOCAN 2008 (Ferlay et al., 2008) (excluding RoI and NI data, which is derived from Cancer Registry data for 2005-2007)