Important dates

Letter from Dr. Johannes Clemmesen to Niilo Voipio, general secretary of the Cancer Society of Finland. Most important points: 

• It takes time for physicians to get used to cancer registration.
• At the beginning, also prevalent cases will be reported.
• Every fifth year not a good idea
• One-year material not necessarily sufficient

Foundation of the Icelandic Cancer Registry. First Director is Prof. Olafur Bjarnason

Letter from Dr. Einar Pedersen to Prof. Erkki Saxén. Most important points: 

• initiative to compare forms, reports etc.
• suggestion for more direct contacts

Reply from Prof. Erkki Saxén to Dr. Johannes Clemmesen. Most important points: 

• the idea of an informal joint meeting excellent
• discussion of different problems in the registration

Letter from Dr. Johannes Clemmesen to Prof. Erkki Saxén. Most important points: 

• Inter-European Symposium in Copenhagen, June 1955
• 1-2 participants/registry
• discussion on organization and working methods
• aim: European cancer registration
• informal but informative meeting
• be a "tourist" when booking the hotel!

Foundation of the Swedish Cancer Registry at the National Board of Health. First director is Prof. Nils Ringertz

Letter from Herman Höst, Landsforeningen mot Kreft (the predecessor of the Norwegian Cancer Society), inviting to a cancer registry metting at the Nordic Cancer Union symposium in October 1961

Letter from Dr. Johannes Clemmesen to Prof. Erkki Saxén about a joint project of "leukaemia distribution in the Scandinavian countries" as planned in 1961 (similar to the project in progress in Connecticut)

International Symposium of End Results of Cancer Therapy, Sandefjord, Norway. Participation of the Danish, Finnish and Norwegian Cancer registries, cf. NCI Monograph No. 15, 1964

Joint initiative byt he five Nordic cancer registry directors to the Nordic Cancer Union. Most important points: 

• regular Nordic meetings of cancer registries
• medical and statistical leaders
• coordination of activities
• what is common, what differs
• life styles, exposures
• cancer causing factors
• exclusion of non-causal factors
• comparisons best done by the institutions that collect the data
• three-day meetings half-yearly (at the beginning), yearly (later)

Letter from Prof. Erkki Saxén to Dr. Jörgen Schultz-Larsen, Subeditor of Acta Pathologica et Microbiologica Scandinavica. Most important points: 

• publication of the annual statistics of the Nordic registries (did not happen)
• difficult to get hold of statistics published in publications by the cancer societies or the nationalboards of health

First volume of Cancer Incidence in Five Continents. A Technical Report edited by Richard Doll, Peter Payne and John Waterhouse, published by Springer-Verlag for the International Union against Cancer.

Doll, R.,Payne, P.,Waterhouse, J.A.H., eds (1966)
Cancer Incidence in Five Continents, Vol. I
Union Internationale Contre le Cancer, Geneva

The first annual meeting of the Nordic cancer registries, Imatra, Finland

Association of the Nordic Cancer Registries founded at the 1984 annual meeting in Uppsala, Sweden, with decisions about: 

• statutes
• tasks
• board members
• two/national registry
• one for regional registries per country
• one for each special region, e.g. Faroe Islands