# Swedish Cancer Register (Cancerregistret, Socialstyrelsen)

Source: https://onco.cc/institutions/swedish-cancer-register/  
OnCo record `swedish-cancer-register` (Institution). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Sweden's national count of cancer, kept by the National Board of Health and Welfare since 1958. Every new tumour has to be reported by law, usually twice, by the clinic and by the pathology laboratory, and about 80,000 are reported each year.

## Summary

The Swedish Cancer Register is one of Socialstyrelsen's health data registers and has compiled diagnosed tumours since 1958. Reporting is a legal duty on everyone who provides health care, set out in the Act on Health Data Registers (1998:543), the ordinance on the cancer register (2001:709) and Socialstyrelsen's regulations HSLF-FS 2016:7. Where a diagnosis is made both clinically and morphologically, both units report, to one of the six regional cancer centres, which code and check the notifications before passing them on; the register is updated once a year. Socialstyrelsen states that about 80,000 malignant tumours are reported each year and that about 99 per cent of tumour records are morphologically confirmed. Basal cell carcinoma has been kept in a separate register since 2004, at about 50,000 people a year.

Its headline for 2024, published on 4 November 2025: 80,764 malignant tumours in 73,861 people, 34,996 women and 38,865 men, with 11,372 women and 12,142 men dying of cancer the same year according to the cause of death register. Breast cancer was the commonest diagnosis in women (8,803) and prostate cancer in men (10,782).

The register's own quality report names its weak point plainly. Unlike most other national registers, including the other Nordic ones, Sweden has never followed up cancers that appear on a death certificate without a registration, so tumours diagnosed by imaging alone in older people, typically in the pancreas and lung, can be missing. Socialstyrelsen estimated the shortfall by linking the cause of death and patient registers: 3,958 cases a year on average over 2005 to 2022, 6.4 per cent of registered cases, falling to 4.8 per cent in 2014 to 2022 from 8.0 per cent in 2005 to 2013, and 12.3 per cent among people diagnosed at 80 or older against 2.7 per cent below 80. It notes that introducing systematic follow-up would probably need a change in the law.

## Fields

- Kind: Institution
- Last checked: 2026-11-03
- Also known as: Cancerregistret; Swedish Cancer Registry; Socialstyrelsens cancerregister; National Board of Health and Welfare cancer register
- City: Stockholm, SE
- Type: government
- Website: https://www.socialstyrelsen.se/statistik-och-data/register/cancerregistret/

## Sources

- Socialstyrelsen: Cancerregistret: https://www.socialstyrelsen.se/statistik-och-data/register/cancerregistret/
- Statistik om nyupptäckta cancerfall 2024 (Socialstyrelsen, 2025, PDF): https://www.socialstyrelsen.se/contentassets/06ca5be116fc41f7a0326ef92a0715f1/2025-11-9874.pdf
- Cancerregistrets framställning och kvalitet: https://www.socialstyrelsen.se/statistik-och-data/register/cancerregistret/framstallning-och-kvalitet/
- Bortfall i svenska cancerregistret, 2005-2022 (Socialstyrelsen, 2024, PDF): https://www.socialstyrelsen.se/contentassets/24aca3770af044db957f4ee2af50172a/2024-4-9040.pdf

## Connected records

- fronts: [Early Detection & Screening](https://onco.cc/fronts/early-detection/), [Prevention & Risk](https://onco.cc/fronts/prevention/)
- institutions: [Regional Cancer Centres in Collaboration (RCC i samverkan)](https://onco.cc/institutions/rcc-i-samverkan/), [Swedish Cancer Society (Cancerfonden)](https://onco.cc/institutions/cancerfonden/)
- terms: [Real-world evidence](https://onco.cc/terms/real-world-evidence/)
- people: [Mats Lambe](https://onco.cc/people/mats-lambe/)
- bottlenecks: [Data silos](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-data-silos/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/swedish-cancer-register.json