Prevalence (Numbers of Cancer Survivors) UK

This page presents the latest estimated cancer prevalence, also known as the number of cancer survivors, for the UK. The cancer incidence section has statistics on the number of new cases of cancer diagnosed with cancer each year.

Whilst cancer incidence refers to the number of new cancer cases arising in a specified period of time, cancer prevalence refers to the number of people who have previously received a diagnosis of cancer and who are still alive at a given time point. Some of these patients will have been cured and others will not. Therefore prevalence reflects both the incidence of cancer and its associated survival pattern.

Overall, it is estimated that there are now 2 million cancer survivors in the UK, or approximately 3.3% of the population of the UK 1. This figure is rising at an estimated 3.2% per year, with the single cancer that contributes most to this total being breast cancer, with an estimated 550,000 women alive who have had a diagnosis of breast cancer. Overall, 10% of the total UK population over the age of 65 years is now a cancer survivor.

These latest estimates are much higher than previous forecasts of cancer prevalence 2. This is mainly because incidence has been rising whilst the death rates have continued to fall, leading to better survival. This trend is expected to continue over the coming years as a result of a number of factors, including an ageing population, earlier detection of cancer and continued improvements in treatment.

Table 7.1 shows the latest cancer prevalence estimates for the UK.

Cancer prevalence data for the UK

Download this table (21KB)

The latest estimates 1 were calculated from data for England for 1971-2004, with corrections applied to give an estimate of the number of cancer survivors alive before 1971, and also how many there would be from 2004 up to the end of 2008. These estimates were then scaled up to the UK population.

Back to top ^

 
Back to Trends in UK cancer incidence statistics Back to
Trends in UK cancer incidence statistics

Browse related content

 

References for cancer prevalence

  1.  Maddams J, Moller H and Devane C., Cancer prevalence in the UK, 2008 Thames Cancer Registry and Macmillan Cancer Support, 2008
  2.  Forman, D., et al., Cancer prevalence in the UK: results from the EUROPREVAL study. Ann Oncol, 2003. 14(4): p. 648-654