The methods used to estimate the country-specific burden of cancer are similar to those used in GLOBOCAN 2002 and have been described in detail in several reports. In summary, the most recent disease rates available were applied to the corresponding population of the country in 2008. For GLOBOCAN 2008, the degree of delay in the available data was taken into account by computing predictions of the national incidence and mortality rates to the year 2008, wherever possible. Although historical trends will not always hold in the future, predictions based on relatively linear trend patterns have been shown empirically to be reasonably accurate, particularly in the short-term. Where the availability of annual data was minimal commonly between 5 and 10 years simple time-linear models were fitted to these data to predict incidence and mortality for 2008. Where data series spanning at least 15 years were available, predictions based on age-period-cohort modeling were utilised. An example of the improvement in methodology and resulting prediction is illustrated in Figure 2 showing predictions of lung cancer mortality in Canadian males using the GLOBOCAN 2002 and 2008 approaches