Loading
South Africa's national cancer registry, part of the National Health Laboratory Service. Since 1986 it has counted every cancer confirmed by a laboratory, and since 2017 it has also run registries that count every cancer, however diagnosed, in Ekurhuleni and, since 2023, in KwaZulu-Natal.
The National Cancer Registry is a division of the National Health Laboratory Service, run from 1 Modderfontein Road, Sandringham, Johannesburg, and published through the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. Since 1986 it has run pathology-based registration: public and private laboratories send it every cancer diagnosed by histology, cytology or bone marrow, and it publishes counts and rates by sex, age and population group each year. Its tables for cancers diagnosed in 2024, posted in April 2026, count 48,865 cancers in women and 42,770 in men, including basal and squamous cell skin cancers; the rates for all cancers exclude those skin cancers and are 110 per 100,000 for women and 115 for men, age-standardised to the world population.
Regulation R. 380 under the National Health Act, gazetted on 26 April 2011, established the registry in law under the control of the chief executive of the National Health Laboratory Service and made cancer reportable: a health establishment that confirms a diagnosis must submit a notification within three months, and laboratories must report quarterly. The regulation allows population-based registration to be introduced incrementally. The Ekurhuleni Population-Based Cancer Registry began collecting in January 2017 and counted 4,914 new cancers in 2024; the KwaZulu-Natal registry, run with the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Cancer and Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Research Unit since 2023, counted 3,923 in eThekwini. A separate childhood cancer registry counted 3,032 cancers in children and adolescents aged 0 to 19 in 2022 and 2023.
The registry also runs the South African HIV Cancer Match Study, which links its records to the laboratory service's HIV test results. Its Ekurhuleni report for 2024 records that a cyberattack on the National Health Laboratory Service and a new patient identification system delayed case confirmation, so the 2024 total likely modestly underestimates true incidence, while its discussion adds that part of the 2024 rise reflects back-capture of records missed in 2023 rather than a true increase. The coordinates are approximate for Sandringham, not the street address.
Many people diagnosed with cancer in South Africa are living with HIV, which affects their treatment, but registry records often do not say so; the authors call on clinicians and pathologists to record HIV status at diagnosis.
Cancers driven by HPV other than cervical cancer are rising quickly in South Africa, most among Black South Africans, which the authors link to high HPV and HIV co-infection; HIV prevention and HPV vaccination are the levers.
As people with HIV in South Africa live longer on treatment, screening and early detection for cancers not caused by infection matter more, while cervical cancer control stays essential.
Shares National Department of Health, South Africa, Cervical cancer, Breast cancer (all types), Prostate cancer.
Shares National Department of Health, South Africa, Cervical cancer.
Shares International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC / WHO), Cervical cancer, Breast cancer (all types).
Shares Childhood cancers (all types), Cervical cancer, Breast cancer (all types).
Shares National Department of Health, South Africa, Cervical cancer, Prostate cancer.
Shares International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC / WHO), Cervical cancer, Breast cancer (all types).
Shares International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC / WHO), Cervical cancer, Prostate cancer.
Shares Kaposi sarcoma, Cervical cancer.
Every source this page cites, grouped by who published it. Grouping is read from the web address, not assigned by hand.
A source that has moved or gone is reported by the weekly link check. /audit/