Senior Epidemiologist

Donald Maxwell Parkin, M.D. graduated in medicine in 1968 and specialised in public health/epidemiology in 1973. From 1981-2004 he was head of  Descriptive Epidemiology at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (WHO) in Lyon, France. He was responsible for monitoring global patterns and trends of cancer, was principal editor for 3 volumes of the “Cancer Incidence in Five Continents” series, and initiated the much-used GLOBOCAN estimates of world cancer burden. Currently, he is President of the International Association of Cancer Registries (IACR), a society dedicated to furthering the work of cancer registration worldwide, and a consultant to the cancer registry in Kampala, Uganda, where several studies on the role of HIV infection on cancer risk have been carried out.

Since 2005, he has been Senior Research Fellow, Clinical Trials Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit, Oxford University, working on quantitative estimation of cancer and the impact of different risk factors (Infections, tobacco, obesity) on patterns and trends of cancer internationally, and acting as consultant to WHO, the EU, the Institute of Medicine, American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute of Thailand.

In May 2006 he joined the Cancer Research UK Centre for Epidemiology, Mathematics and Statistics (now the Centre for Cancer Prevention), Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, as a Senior Epidemiologist, where he is responsible for preparing on behalf of Cancer Research UK a set of “scenarios” for cancer in the UK. This comprises projections of cancer incidence and mortality to the year 2025, with plausible estimates of the potential impact of different interventions in prevention, early diagnosis/screening and treatment. The ultimate objective is to allow rational prioritisation of the work of CRUK. He holds honorary professorships at the Karolinska Institute (Stockholm) and at the Medical Universities of Peking and Tianjin, China. He has published more than 300 papers in the international literature.

Selected publications

1. Parkin, D.M., Whelan, S.L., Ferlay, J., Teppo, L. and Thomas, D.B.eds (2002) Cancer Incidence in Five Continents, Vol. VIII. IARC Scientific Publications No. 155.Lyon, IARC
2. Parkin, D.M., Ferlay, J., Hamdi-Chérif, M., Sitas, F., Thomas, J.O., Wabinga, H. and Whelan, S.L. (eds) (2003)  Cancer in Africa: Epidemiology and Prevention.  IARC Scientific Publications No.153, IARC, Lyon, France
3. Parkin DM, Bray F, Ferlay J, Pisani P Global cancer statistics, 2002.CA Cancer J Clin. 2005;55:74-108.
4. Sankaranarayanan R, Nene BM, Dinshaw KA, Mahe C, Jayant K, Shastri SS, Malvi SG, Chinoy R, Kelkar R, Budukh AM, Keskar V, Rajeshwarker R, Muwonge R, Kane S, Parkin DM. A cluster randomized controlled trial of visual, cytology and human papillomavirus screening for cancer of the cervix in rural India. Int J Cancer. 2005 ;116: 617-23. Parkin DM, Bray F. Descriptive Studies. In Ahrens W & OPigeot I (eds) Handbook of epidemiology, 1st Edn. 2005. Springer.
5.  Pisani P, Parkin DM, Ngelangel C, Esteban D, Gibson L, Munson M, Reyes MG, Laudico A. Outcome of screening by clinical examination of the breast in a trial in the Philippines. Int J Cancer. 2006; 118: 149-54.
6. Mbulaiteye SM, Katabira ET, Wabinga H, Parkin DM, Virgo P, Ochai R, Workneh M, Coutinho A, Engels EA. Spectrum of cancers among HIV-infected persons in Africa: the Uganda AIDS-Cancer Registry Match Study. Int J Cancer. 2006 Feb 15;118(4):985-90.
7. Parkin DM.  The global health burden of infection-associated cancers in the year 2002.Int J Cancer. 2006 Jun 15;118(12):3030-44.
8. Parkin DM.  The evolution of the population-based cancer registry. Nat Rev Cancer. 2006 Aug;6(8):603-12. 
9. Parkin DM, Bray F.  Chapter 2: The burden of HPV-related cancers.Vaccine. 2006 Aug 21;24 Suppl 3:S11-25.
10. Mackay J, Jemal A, Lee NC, Parkin DM (eds) The Cancer Atlas.  Atlanta, Ga. American Cancer Society, 2006
11. Parkin DM & Bray F. International Patterns of Cancer Incidence and Mortality , in Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention, Third Edition. Edited by David Schottenfeld and Joseph F. Fraumeni. August 2006. Oxford University Press