Statistics on the risk of developing cancer

An individual’s risk of developing cancer depends on many factors, including smoking behaviour, diet and genetic inheritance.

Cancer is primarily a disease of older people; therefore a person's risk of developing cancer is dependent on age. Overall, it is estimated that more than one in three people will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime 1-4. This compares to an estimated risk of 1 in 27 for people aged up to 50 years. For further information on risk see the section on understanding risk.

Estimates of the lifetime risk of developing some of the most common cancers are shown in Table 5.15. These estimates assume no change in the current incidence rates and should be used as an approximate guide only.

Table 5.1: The risk of being diagnosed with one of the major cancers

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Cancer is primarily a disease of older people, as the difference between the estimates for the percentage of a cohort who develop cancer by age 65 and over a lifetime show. For instance, a woman's risk of developing breast cancer by age 65 is less than 6% but the overall lifetime risk is 11%. For men there is a less than 2% risk of developing lung cancer by age 65 but this increases to 8% over a lifetime.

Life expectancy in the UK is increasing, with more elderly people alive today than ever before. In 2002, a woman aged 65 could expect to live to the age of 84, while a man could expect to live to 81 6. If current cancer incidence rates remain the same, by 2025 there will be an additional 100,000 cases of cancer diagnosed each year as a result of the ageing population 7.