Cancer cause most deaths in Norway

Folkehelseinstituttet in Oslo.Photo: Terje Bendiksby / NTB scanpix

Cancer is now the most frequent cause of death in Norway

Last year, more people died of cancer than cardiovascular diseases in this country.

 

New figures show from the Cause of Death Register published by the Norwegian Public Health Institute on Wednesday morning, writes Bergens Tidende.

Deaths due to lung disease and dementia are the second most frequent causes of death.

A total of 10,894 people died of cancer in 2017. The picture is slightly different for women and men, but for both sexes, lung cancer is the largest group. Then comes breast cancer, prostate cancer and colon cancer.

– The mortality rate of cardiovascular disease began to fall in the 1970s. In recent decades we have seen a dramatic fall, and we have long been waiting for the basket to level out. By 2017, however, we see that the decline continues, says Senior Marianne Sørlie Strøm at the Department’s Department of Health Registry Research and Development.

The proportion of cancer deaths has also declined over the last 20 years, but not as much as for cardiovascular disease.

Strøm says the rapid changes in the mortality of cardiovascular disease are probably due to several factors that have had different meanings in different periods.

 

© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today