🇨🇭 Cancer in Switzerland

The office's key figures workbook (Kennzahlen zu Krebs, updated 10 November 2025) gives for 2022: 28,141 new cases in men and 22,693 in women, estimated from registry data and excluding non-melanoma skin cancer; incidence rates of 450.67 and 348.29 per 100,000 on the 1976 European standard; a cumulative risk before 70 of 25.3 and 21.5 per cent; 9,310 and 7,910 cancer deaths, 25.5 per cent of all deaths in men and 20.8 per cent in women; and 34,381 men and 30,352 women hospitalised with cancer as the main diagnosis. Averaged over 2018-2022, the open data put the commonest cancers at about 8,300 prostate cancers a year, 6,760 breast cancers in women, 5,060 lung, 4,560 colorectal and 3,510 melanomas. The median age at diagnosis was 70 for all cancers, and 64 for breast cancer. Lung cancer causes the most cancer deaths, about 3,260 a year; breast cancer is the commonest cause of cancer death in women, at 17.6 per cent of women's cancer deaths. The office's next release, covering 1984-2023, is scheduled for 16 November 2026.

The office's methods note (2026) sets out how a national figure is made: observed cases are weighted up by the ratio of total population to registered population, stratified by age, sex and language region, to compensate for cantons or years without registration. The share of the population covered was 55.3 per cent in 1993-1997, 67.4 per cent in 2008-2012, 91.6 per cent in 2013-2017 and 98.3 per cent in 2018-2022; the French- and Italian-speaking cantons have been fully covered since 2006 and the German-speaking ones since 2020. The first registry opened in Basel in 1969 (electronic data from 1981), followed by Geneva in 1970 and Vaud and Neuchâtel in 1974; Bern began in 2014, Solothurn in 2019, and Schwyz and Schaffhausen joined on 1 January 2020. The note also records quality limits: in the Basel registry, linkage with death certificates was complete only from 2013, and for Zurich it is documented only from 1997; whether it was complete for 1980-1996 can no longer be established. Children and adolescents under 20 are counted by the national Childhood Cancer Registry in Bern, about 252 new cases a year in 2018-2022.

The office reports that since 1993 lung cancer incidence and mortality rates fell by 31 and 48 per cent in men and rose by 72 and 40 per cent in women, with women's mortality no longer rising between 2013-2017 and 2018-2022. Colorectal incidence fell by 21 per cent in men and 10 per cent in women between 1998-2002 and 2018-2022, and mortality by 45 and 41 per cent over thirty years. A 2026 national study on the NKRS dataset found the opposite trend under 50: of 96,410 adults diagnosed from 1980 to 2021, 6.1 per cent were under 50, incidence in that group rose by about 0.5 per cent a year, and 27.7 per cent of early-onset cancers were stage IV against 19.4 per cent at 75 and over. Melanoma incidence rose 78 per cent in men and 65 per cent in women over thirty years, and the 2021 Swiss Cancer Report noted that Switzerland's melanoma rate is above the average of the comparison countries while most other rates are low. Breast cancer mortality has fallen 44 per cent since 1993 and prostate cancer mortality 50 per cent.

The Swiss Cancer Report 2021 gives relative five-year survival for 2013-2017 of 63.8 per cent in men and 67.1 per cent in women (absolute survival 56.4 and 61.5 per cent), up from 61 and 64 per cent in 2003-2007; relative ten-year survival rose from 54 to 57 per cent in men and from 57 to 60 per cent in women. It attributes the rise in part to earlier detection, for example of breast cancer, and to better treatment, and places Switzerland in the upper middle of the international comparison. On 31 December 2017, 65,762 men and 62,781 women were living with a cancer diagnosed in the previous five years. Newer site-specific figures come from the NKRS: in 2020-2023, relative survival with prostate cancer was 97 per cent at three years, and observed three-year survival ranged from 98 per cent in the lowest-risk group to 58 per cent with distant metastases; the office's cancer report, which carries survival, appears every five years, and the 2021 edition is the latest OnCo found.

The Federal Act on the Registration of Cancer Diseases (Krebsregistrierungsgesetz, KRG, SR 818.33) was passed in March 2016 and came into force on 1 January 2020 with its ordinance (KRV) of April 2018. Article 3 obliges doctors, hospitals and other health institutions that diagnose or treat a cancer to record and report basic data: name, AHV insurance number, address, date of birth, sex, diagnostic data and first treatment. The NKRS adds that reports are due within four weeks, that in-situ tumours, tumours of uncertain behaviour and benign tumours of the central nervous system and pituitary are reportable, and that breast, colorectal and prostate cancer in adults, and all cancers in children, carry additional data on predispositions and comorbidities. Article 6 makes registration conditional on the patient not objecting after being informed. Registration happens no earlier than three months after the report; an objection after that deletes the personal data, keeps the disease data, and applies for life and across cantons. Adults are registered by 13 cantonal registries, children and young people up to 20 by the national Childhood Cancer Registry, and the NKRS, run by the NICER foundation, pools and checks the data. Article 34 required the Federal Office of Public Health to evaluate the Act within five years of its entry into force.

The NKRS analysed more than 20,000 breast cancers and precursors from 2020-2022 against 38 indicators, and more than 35,000 prostate cancers from 2020-2023 against 32, published with Swiss Urology in September 2026. For prostate cancer, about 8,929 cases a year at an average age of 71 (the report's mittleres Erkrankungsalter): 76 per cent were found by opportunistic early-detection testing, 13 per cent incidentally and 7 per cent from symptoms; 35 per cent of men had surgery (or rarely HIFU), 25 per cent hormone therapy, 19 per cent radiotherapy, 20 per cent active surveillance and 4 per cent watchful waiting; 72 per cent of low-risk cancers went on active surveillance; 30-day mortality after radical prostatectomy was 0.2 per cent. The report concludes that care is broadly guideline-concordant, that avoidable overdiagnosis and overtreatment occur, pointing to low-risk tumours found in men over 80, and recommends restraint in PSA testing where life expectancy is under ten years, evaluating an organised programme like those for breast and bowel cancer, and discussing every new case at a tumour board. For breast cancer, 85 per cent of treatment decisions were taken at a tumour board, and in cantons with a programme, 34 per cent of invasive cancers and 52 per cent of precursors in women of screening age were found by the programme. Both reports caution that 2020 was the first year of compulsory reporting and of the pandemic, and treatment may be under-reported.

The Health Insurance Act (KVG, SR 832.10) makes basic insurance (obligatorische Krankenpflegeversicherung, OKP) compulsory for everyone resident in Switzerland (Article 3). Article 61 requires an insurer to charge its insured the same premium unless the Act provides otherwise, graded by canton and, within limits set by the Federal Department of Home Affairs, by region, with lower premiums for children and young adults; premiums are a flat amount per person, not a share of income. Cantons pay premium reductions to people on modest incomes (Article 65). What the insurance covers is the same for everyone, and every covered service must be effective, appropriate and economical (Article 32), the WZW criteria that also decide which cancer medicines are paid for.

KVG Article 64 sets the cost share as a fixed annual deductible (Franchise) plus 10 per cent of costs above it (Selbstbehalt). KVV Article 103 fixes the ordinary deductible at CHF 300 a year and the annual ceiling on the 10 per cent share at CHF 700 for adults and CHF 350 for children, who pay no deductible. KVV Article 93 lets adults choose deductibles of CHF 500, 1,000, 1,500, 2,000 or 2,500 in exchange for a premium reduction capped by Article 95. KVV Article 104 adds a contribution of CHF 15 a day to the cost of a hospital stay, not charged for the day of discharge or for children and young adults in education. One exception raises the share: under KLV Article 38a, a medicine whose price is at least 10 per cent above the average of the cheapest third of products with the same active substance carries a 40 per cent share instead of 10, which matters for tablets that have generics. The cap applies to covered care; costs the insurance does not cover, loss of earnings and travel are outside it.

KLV Article 12e lists the screening basic insurance pays for. Screening mammography is covered every two years from the 50th birthday within a programme meeting the 1999 ordinance on quality assurance in mammography screening, with no deductible. Colorectal screening is covered from 50 to 74, as a faecal occult blood test every two years with colonoscopy if positive, or colonoscopy every ten years; the deductible is waived when it is done in the programmes of Basel-Landschaft, Basel-Stadt, Bern, Fribourg, Geneva, Glarus, Graubünden, Jura, Lucerne, Neuchâtel, Solothurn, St Gallen, Ticino, Uri, Vaud or Valais, sixteen of the 26 cantons. Cervical smears are covered, but testing for human papillomavirus in cervical screening is excluded. There is no organised prostate programme; the NKRS reports that three in four prostate cancers are found by opportunistic early-detection testing outside one. The NKRS breast report says about half of the women invited to a programme take part.

KVV Article 65 makes a valid Swissmedic authorisation a precondition and requires the WZW criteria. KVV Article 65b defines economic as achieving the intended effect at the lowest possible cost, assessed by a therapeutic cross-comparison with the average price of other medicines for the same disease and by a foreign price comparison, the two weighted half each. KLV Article 34abis names the reference countries: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden. The Federal Drugs Commission advises the BAG on the list (KVV Article 37e). The BAG can attach conditions and time limits to a listing, for example for a medicine whose effectiveness or economy is still being clarified where alternatives are lacking (KVV Article 65 paragraph 5). Neither the KVV nor the KLV sets a cost-per-QALY threshold. Under KVV Article 71 the BAG publishes the list itself, the basis of its effectiveness and cross-comparison assessment and the reference-country average price where the commission was consulted, the reasons for refusing or deleting a listing, and, once an application arrives, the drug, the disease and the date; what it does not publish is the basis of confidential rebates agreed with the company.

KVV Article 69 paragraph 4 allows an application once Swissmedic has confirmed the indication and dose in its preliminary decision (Vorbescheid), and Article 69a allows a preliminary consultation and, after one with Swissmedic, filing even before the preliminary decision. KLV Article 31b then says that where the conditions were met before final authorisation, the BAG decides as a rule within 60 days of it; KLV Article 31c requires the company to tell the BAG within 30 days of filing with Swissmedic. Interpharma's Innovationsreport 2025 states that only four per cent of newly authorised medicines were decided within 60 days in 2025, and that the median time from authorisation to listing was 219 days, citing its own calculations from the Spezialitätenliste and Swissmedic data. That is an industry association's figure, not a government one; the BAG may publish its own monitoring, but OnCo did not find it. Of the 40 new active substances Swissmedic authorised in 2025, 11 were for cancer and haematological malignancies.

KVV Articles 71a to 71d set the rules, in their current form since 1 January 2024. Article 71a covers listed medicines used outside the label or the listing limitation; 71b, Swissmedic-authorised medicines not on the list; 71c, imported medicines not authorised in Switzerland but authorised for the indication in a country whose system Swissmedic recognises as equivalent. The core condition is that a large therapeutic benefit is expected against a disease that can be fatal or cause severe chronic harm and, for lack of alternatives, no other effective authorised treatment is available. The insurer sets the price with the company: for benefit-based cases the discount on the listed or foreign reference price is set by benefit category and is at most 50 per cent. Article 71d requires prior approval (Kostengutsprache) after consulting the insurer's medical adviser, a decision within two weeks of a complete request, reasons to doctor and patient for a refusal, and, for a rare-disease medicine likely to be refused without clinical trials, the opinion of a clinical expert. The decision is each insurer's, so two patients with the same cancer can receive different answers.

Swissmedic's 2025 report on new active substances gives a median throughput of 392 calendar days for the 40 applications, 52 days (12 per cent) faster than 2024's 444. Half were authorised in procedures with standard deadlines, with a median of 458 days against a maximum of 540, and half in accelerated procedures, median 338 days; the fast-track procedure (beschleunigtes Zulassungsverfahren) was used for six, median 288 days against a 350-day limit. Two were temporary (befristete) authorisations. Reliance on a foreign decision under Article 13 of the Therapeutic Products Act was used for seven, median 391 days. Ten approvals, 25 per cent, came through international work-sharing: eight in the Access Consortium with Australia, Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom (median 395 days), and two cancer medicines in the FDA-led Project Orbis (median 321 days). The eleven oncology approvals included erdafitinib, belantamab mafodotin, datopotamab deruxtecan, mirvetuximab soravtansine, serplulimab, inavolisib, lazertinib, selinexor, quizartinib and zolbetuximab.

Swissmedic summarises the Centre for Innovation in Regulatory Science's R&D Briefing 106, which compares Swissmedic, EMA, FDA, PMDA, Health Canada and TGA: 34 of Swissmedic's 40 new substances of 2025 were included; total approval time including company time was 413 days against 448 for EMA; scientific review time including company response was 303 days, second after Japan; the labelling phase fell by 22 days to 119. From 2021 to 2025 Swissmedic used at least one facilitated pathway in 68 per cent of applications, behind the FDA's 75 per cent and ahead of TGA (62), Health Canada (55), EMA (36) and PMDA (24). The median submission gap, from filing with the first regulator to filing with Swissmedic, was 569 days; for EMA it was 69, Health Canada 670, TGA 700 and PMDA 807. Swissmedic's own conclusion is that availability in Switzerland depends substantially on when companies submit. The CIRS figures are Swissmedic's summary of the study; OnCo did not read the CIRS report itself.

The Swiss Cancer Institute is recognised by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation as a research institution of national importance and funded under a performance agreement based on Article 15a of the Research and Innovation Promotion Act. It changed its name from SAKK on 1 July 2025 with the same management and contracts. Its trials have tested questions industry does not ask: SAKK 16/00 randomised 232 patients with stage IIIA/N2 lung cancer at 23 centres and found that adding radiotherapy to induction chemotherapy before surgery did not improve event-free survival (12.8 against 11.6 months, p=0.67), funded by SERI, the Swiss Cancer League and Sanofi. Two international academic groups are also based in Switzerland: the ETOP IBCSG Partners Foundation in Bern, behind the SOFT and TEXT breast cancer trials, and the International Extranodal Lymphoma Study Group in Bellinzona, behind IELSG-19 in MALT lymphoma.

Imatinib, the targeted drug that transformed chronic myeloid leukaemia, came out of the oncology research department of Ciba-Geigy in Basel, which became part of Novartis; asciminib, midostaurin and everolimus are Novartis medicines, and the glycoengineered CD20 antibody obinutuzumab was engineered at GlycArt Biotechnology in Schlieren, near Zurich, and the CD20 by CD3 bispecific glofitamab at the Roche Innovation Center Zurich, as the affiliations on their first papers show. The country also hosts ESMO's head office in Lugano and the Union for International Cancer Control and the World Health Organization in Geneva, and the Lausanne university hospital, CHUV, from which Roger Stupp led the EORTC and NCIC trial that made temozolomide with radiotherapy the standard for glioblastoma. The companies section below lists the Swiss oncology companies in the corpus, from Roche and Novartis to Basel and Zurich biotechs.

The League describes more than 110 years of work and acts as umbrella for 18 cantonal and regional leagues. With the Swiss Cancer Research foundation, which since 1991 has funded only industry-independent projects chosen by a scientific committee and approved about CHF 12.2 million of new projects in its round announced on 18 June 2026, it funds independent Swiss cancer research. The League also runs prevention campaigns and smoking-cessation support.

KLV Article 31b sets the 60-day target; Interpharma's Innovationsreport 2025 is the source of the 4 per cent and 219-day figures. OnCo searched the BAG site only lightly because the BAG restructured its website and older addresses now return a not-found page. A BAG or Federal Audit Office figure would replace the industry one here.

The NKRS says the office publishes a cancer report every five years with survival and prevalence; the NKRS's list of reports ends at 2021. Newer site-specific survival is available only from the NKRS care-quality reports: for breast cancer diagnosed in 2020-2022, to two years, and for prostate cancer diagnosed in 2020-2023, to three years.

The Swiss figure comes from the cause-of-death statistics and counts deaths where cancer is the underlying cause. GLOBOCAN's method for Switzerland is not described in the extract OnCo holds. The page reports both rather than choosing.

KRG Article 34 required a first evaluation at the latest five years after entry into force, so by January 2025, reported by the Federal Department of Home Affairs to the Federal Council. Whether it has been published, and what it found about completeness and objections, OnCo could not establish.

Crossref and Europe PMC were rate-limited or unavailable on the day this page was built, so papers were resolved through PubMed instead. The Swiss Cancer Institute's founding year is not stated on its current pages beyond more than 60 years, and is left out. The national cancer strategy that ran until 2020 and any successor plan were not researched for this page.