The proportion of people surviving at five years following diagnosis has significantly increased and death rates from blood cancers have fallen, the report from the National Cancer Registry Ireland (NCRI) revealed.
The most commonly diagnosed blood cancers were non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukaemia and multiple myeloma.
Professor Deirdre Murray, director of NCRI and professor of epidemiology at University College Cork, said that five-year survival for blood cancers had increased from 53pc between 1994 to 2007, to 67pc between 2008 and 2021.
Compared with a peak in blood cancer death rates in the late 1990s, mortality has since declined by more than one percentage point annually.
Blood cancers make up 10pc of all new cancer diagnoses and more than 8pc of cancer deaths every year.
Around 2,400 people are diagnosed with blood cancer each year in Ireland, with this number expected to increase to more than 3,000 new cases annually by 2030 as the population ages.
The report said there were many types of blood cancer and this study was the first of its kind to provide comprehensive data across these separate forms of the disease.
From the mid-2000s, leukaemia incidence rates declined significantly, while non-Hodgkin lymphoma rates stabilised from the mid-2010s.
The greatest improvement in five-year net survival between 1994-2007 and 2008-2021 was seen for multiple myeloma, up 24 percentage points. For leukaemia, the improvement was 12 points and it was 15 points for non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The improvement was 8pc for Hodgkin lymphoma.
“The report sheds light on the diversity in incidence and outcomes for blood cancers, providing important data to better address the burden of blood cancer in the Irish population,” Prof Murray added.
“The significant increases in survival and reductions in mortality reflect diagnostic and therapeutic innovations. Genetic testing has been increasingly applied to improve diagnosis and better target treatments for patients with blood cancers.
“The advances in diagnosis and treatment over the last decades are reflected in the favourable blood cancer trends overall, but more focus is needed for certain subtypes of blood cancer for which outcomes are less favourable, such as acute myeloid leukaemia.”
Leukaemia rates are generally higher in western Europe and North America, possibly due to exposure to risk factors and greater resources to diagnose the condition, but incidence in many developed countries has been declining.
Incidence rates for leukaemia in Ireland declined significantly in both men and women between 2004 and 2019 after a period of increase from 1994 to the mid-2000s.
The incidence rate of multiple myeloma increased in men and marginally in women. Incidence rates of Hodgkin lymphoma increased in both males and females, while rates of non-Hodgkin lymphoma stabilised.
