ATTLEBORO - City health officials who have questions about an increase in brain cancers in Norton and Attleboro want the most recent cancer data collected by the state evaluated and released faster and have asked for an expedited process.

The request comes in the wake of a January report that detailed cancer rates in Norton, but found no link between incidents of cancer and the polluted Shpack landfill.

But Attleboro Health Officer Dr. Christopher Quinn and Health Agent Jim Mooney said the Shpack report showed that a higher incidence of brain and central nervous system cancer found in Norton between 2000-2002 mirrored one in Attleboro at the same time and may require closer examination if the increases continued after 2002.

The increases came "in the same general area," northeastern Attleboro and western Norton, and should prompt a quicker analysis of the most recent data, he said.

Increases that are maintained over a number of years could be significant, said Quinn. However, he pointed out that sometimes sharp increases appear and disappear for no apparent reason.

The city won't know if the spikes continued until the latest data is evaluated and released, Quinn said.

"It may be a coincidence," Mooney said of the Norton and Attleboro spikes. "But we need to know what happened in '03, '04, '05 and '06."

The request for a quicker release of information was made in a letter to Suzanne Condon, associate commissioner of the Department of Public Health on March 13.

The state's cancer registry, which is under the DPH, typically doesn't release information as soon as it's collected because it has to be confirmed and analyzed first, a process that takes years, Quinn said.

In addition, Quinn and Mooney want to know if data has been collected on Attleboro cancer patients who were treated in nearby Rhode Island hospitals.

If local cancers treated in Rhode Island were not included in the analysis, the statistics could be skewed, they said. "If they are missing cases in Rhode Island maybe there's a bigger issue," Quinn said.

Condon was not available for comment on Friday.

GEORGE W. RHODES can be reached at 508-236-0432 or at grhodes@thesunchronicle.com.