Dr. Jerome Coffey:

The first thing to say is that the previous projections of the National Cancer Registry were found to be true, so I would expect these projections to also be true. There are a number of issues here. One is the size of the population and its age profile. Those were all taken into account in the model. The modelling work is quite complex and I do not understand the statistical element myself. It says, however, that an increase such as this is inevitable. The only way we could seek to bend the curve or reduce the number of new cases would be to focus strongly on lifestyle factors at this point. These include smoking, and smoking rates are coming down, and reducing the alcohol intake. These are lifestyle changes that we know about. Unless those efforts are redoubled now, we will see the doubling to which the Chairman referred and we will see a lot more patients coming through. We would hope that, with current treatment technologies, we will get better outcomes for those patients but one would prefer not to be a patient, even if one survives one's treatment.