Understanding cancer statistics - incidence, survival, mortality

On this page you can read about the different types of cancer statistics.

How many people are diagnosed with cancer – incidence

Incidence means how many people get a particular type of cancer. It is often written as the number of cancer cases per 100,000 people in the general population.

Around 375,400 people get diagnosed with cancer, each year in the UK. That is around 1,000 people every day.

Men are more likely to get cancer than women. Each year, in the UK around 193,000 men and around 182,000 women get diagnosed with cancer.

Incidence can vary by age as well as other factors. As people get older their chance of getting cancer generally gets higher. But there are variations for specific types of cancer. Each year around 35 in 100 (around 35%) of all cancers in the UK happen in people aged 75 and over.

You can read about the incidence of each cancer type by searching for the cancer type you want to find out about. 

How many people are living with cancer – prevalence

Cancer prevalence means the number of people in the population who have had a diagnosis of cancer. There are more than 2 million people living with cancer in the UK.

Some of these people were diagnosed some time ago. They may now be cancer free. Other people were diagnosed more recently and are living with cancer. So prevalence means all the people who have a type of cancer at a particular time.

Statistics and you

Statistics can't tell you exactly what will happen to you. It is information that applies to a group of people. And doctors use this information to work out the statistics. This could be tens, hundreds or thousands of people.

You and your situation are unique, as there is no one else quite like you. So no statistics are able to give you exact answers about the outcome of your particular cancer.

Statistics and treatment

Your doctors can sometimes use statistics to help choose which treatments are most likely to benefit you. Some computer programmes can give statistics on the likely benefits of different treatments. One that you might hear mentioned is Adjuvant! Online, or Predict for breast cancer. Doctors might use programmes like this to predict how well particular treatments may work for you.

Survival statistics

Cancer survival means the percentage of people still alive after a particular amount of time.

Survival statistics for cancer are usually written as:

• 1 year survival
•  5 year survival
• 10 year survival

These statistics can sometimes be difficult to understand. 

Usually, these statistics don't mean that researchers counted people. It is usually an estimate. 

It doesn't mean that these people lived for exactly 1, 5 or 10 years and then died. It also doesn't mean that they were all cured either. Some of these people were cured and the cancer will never come back. For some people, the cancer may have come back and they are living with it. In some people, the cancer may come back after this period of time.

Survival statistics give an overall picture. The survival time for an individual person may be higher or lower, depending on various factors. For example:

• the type and stage of cancer
• your level of fitness
• previous treatment

5 year survival by stage

You may come across 5 year survival figures by stage of cancer. This uses the stage of cancer at the point of diagnosis when working out survival. The stages of cancer are sometimes simplified into groups such as:

• cancer that has stayed in the area where it was diagnosed (local disease)
• cancer that has spread to another part of the body (metastatic disease)

Or the statistics may use the number stages of the cancer, such as:

• stage 1 cancer (small and localised)
• stage 2 cancer (larger but localised)
• stage 3 cancer (spread into surrounding tissues or lymph nodes )
• stage 4 cancer (spread to other parts of the body)

Disease free survival

Disease free survival means everyone with that type of cancer who is alive and has no sign of cancer. And whose cancer hasn't come back (recurred) 5 years after diagnosis.

The number of deaths from cancer – mortality

Mortality means the number of people who have died. It is often written as the number of people who have died of cancer per 100,000 people in the general population.

Mortality figures for cancer are usually looked at alongside the incidence and other statistics. It is important to remember that these statistics are very general.

For example, you may read that there were 55,900 women diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK between 2016 and 2018. You may also read that 11,500 women died from breast cancer in that period of time. But almost all of the women who died would have been diagnosed some years before. In a lot of cases, they would have lived for many years after their cancer diagnosis.

Cancer risk statistics

The risk of cancer is the likelihood of developing or dying from cancer, either within a given period of time or over a lifetime.

Statisticians use the available figures to work out the risk of being diagnosed with cancer at some point during our lives. They write this as our life time risk.

They sometimes write this as a proportion. For example, the calculated life time risk of lung cancer for a man in the UK is 1 in 13. This means that out of every 13 men in the UK, 1 will get lung cancer at some point in his life. And 12 won't.

To change this to a percentage, you divide it into 100. 100 divided by 13 equals 8. So the percentage life time risk of lung cancer for a man in the UK is 8%. This is the overall risk. The risk might be higher or lower, depending on particular factors such as whether a person smokes or not.

Lifetime risk is a cumulative risk. This means that the risk adds up as you get older. So the risk for an average 45 year old person is not 1 in 13 – it will be much lower.

Cancer risk statistics can't help us to identify who will get particular cancers. But they can sometimes help us to know who may have a higher risk than other people in the general population.

More information about cancer statistics

Understanding statistics is important if you are trying to find out about new cancer treatments.  They can also help you to understand how beneficial other treatment options might be. There is information about this on the page about understanding statistics in cancer research.

If you want to find out the likely outcome for a particular type of cancer, you can look at the statistics and outlook page for your cancer type. Go to the cancer types section.

To find detailed information about cancer statistics for all types of cancer, go to our Cancer Stats section.

Next review due: 6 November 2026