The information comes after some Southern DHB patients needing radiation therapy claimed they had to wait up to three months to see a specialist.
Some patients felt they had no choice but to pay for private treatment in Christchurch rather than wait.
When asked about the situation in the Southern DHB, ministry cancer services manager Dawn Wilson said no patient should experience unnecessary delays, and DHBs around the country had been contacted about radiation treatment waiting times.
''We are asking DHBs to explore options to reduce these waiting times,'' Ms Wilson said.
''DHBs regularly share options for meeting patient demand, and this is one way for Southern DHB to manage its wait list while other options are put in place.''
A National Radiation Oncology Online Tool was released in June 2018, and results so far showed ''significant differences across DHBs'' when it came to treatment times.
''Some potential causes for delays in treatment may be service capacity, clinical considerations, or individual patient decisions to defer treatment for personal reasons,'' Ms Wilson said.
Last week Cancer Society Otago-Southland division chief executive Rachael Hart said Southern DHB patients said they had to wait more than double the time in Ministry of Health guidelines for radiation treatment.
In a separate table provided by the Ministry of Health, when it came to meeting the 31-day timeframe for patients with a confirmed cancer diagnosis to receive their first lot of treatment - or other management - the Southern DHB was the second-lowest performing DHB in the country in the period October 2018 to March 2019.
The table showed the proportion of patients who received their first cancer treatment, or other cancer management, within 31 days of a decision to treat.
The ministry set a target of 85% - however, out of 21 DHBs in total, six DHBs sat below that.
Southern had a result of 77.8%, above Northland DHB which was the lowest with 75.2%.
When it came to a second indicator - that patients referred with a high suspicion of cancer, received their first treatment within 62 days of the referral being received by the hospital - the Southern DHB was also below the target of 90% between October 2018 and March 2019, along with more than half of all DHBs.
The Southern DHB was unable to comment before deadline last night.
Ms Wilson said when it came to the 31-day and 62-day indicators, it was possible that while some patients might miss individual milestones for treatment, they could still receive their overall treatment in a timely way.
Southern DHB chief medical officer Dr Nigel Millar said last week the DHB was working hard to reduce waiting times for radiation oncology patients.
''We are aiming to see and treat the most urgent cases as soon as possible and other patients are seen according to the urgency of their condition.''
