All cancers combined statistics - Key Facts

• There are more than 200 types of cancer, each with different causes, symptoms and treatments.
• Around 309,500 were diagnosed with cancer in 2008 in the UK, that's around 850 people every day.
• Every two minutes someone in the UK is diagnosed with cancer.
• More than 1 in 3 people will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime.
• Breast, lung, bowel and prostate cancers together account for over half of all new cancers each year.
• Cancer can develop at any age, but is most common in older people. More than three out of five cancers are diagnosed in people aged 65 and over.
• Around one per cent of cancers occur in children, teenagers and young adults (up to age 24).
• Overall cancer incidence rates have increased by more than a quarter since the late 1970s, but the rates have been fairly stable since the late 1990s.
• Cancer incidence rates have risen by 16% in males and by 34% in females since the late 1970s.
• There have been increases in the incidence of many potentially avoidable cancers such as kidney, malignant melanoma (skin), oral and uterine (womb) cancers.
• Over the last decade the incidence rate of stomach cancer has decreased by more than a quarter for both sexes. Cervical and ovarian cancer each decreased by more than 10% and the lung cancer incidence rate in males decreased by almost a fifth.
• Worldwide there were estimated to be around 12.7 million new cases of cancer in 2008 and over half of these were in developing countries.
• Cancer is the number one fear for the British public, feared ahead of debt, knife crime, Alzheimer’s disease and losing a job.

Read more in depth UK cancer incidence statistics for common cancers. 

Find out why this may differ to other published cancer registrations data.

section updated 07/12/11

• Half of people diagnosed with cancer now survive their disease for at least five years.
• Cancer survival rates in the UK have doubled in the last 40 years.
• Almost three-quarters of children are now cured of their disease, compared with around a quarter in the late 1960s.

Read more in-depth cancer survival statistics.

section updated 29/07/11

• Cancer causes more than one in four of all deaths in the UK.
• More than three-quarters of cancer deaths occur in people aged 65 and over.
• In the UK there were around 156,000 deaths from cancer in 2009.
• In the UK in 2009, more than 425 people died from cancer every day, that is one person every four minutes.
• Cancer death rates in the UK have fallen by a fifth over the last thirty years and by 9% over the last decade.
• More than one in five of all cancer deaths are from lung cancer.
• Worldwide, it is estimated that around 7.6 million people died from cancer in 2008.

Read more in-depth UK cancer mortality statistics.

section updated 07/12/11

• An individual's risk of developing cancer depends on many factors, including age, lifestyle and genetic make-up.
• More than 40% of all cancers in the UK are linked to tobacco, alcohol, diet, overweight, inactivity, infection, radiation, occupation, post-menopausal hormones or breastfeeding.
• Cigarette smoking is the single most important cause of preventable death in the UK.
• Smoking causes nearly a fifth of all cancers in the UK (including over 80% of lung cancers).
• Each year in the UK, around 17,000 cases of cancer are linked to being overweight or obese.
• Around 12,500 cancers in the UK each year are linked to alcohol.
• Research suggests that each of the following increase the risk of certain cancers:  a low fibre diet, low consumption of fruit and vegetables, high consumption of red and processed meats and higher intake of salt or saturated fats.
• Excessive exposure to UV radiation (from the sun or sunbeds) is the most important modifiable risk factor for skin cancers.
• Physical activity protects against colon, breast and womb cancer, independently of its effect on bodyweight.
• A few infectious agents, especially certain viruses, play a key role in causing certain types of cancer.
• It is estimated that inherited factors cause up to 10% of all cancers.
• Factors such as the age at which a women has her first child, number of children, and whether or not she breastfeeds,  affect risk of the most common female cancers.
• Nearly 4% of cancers in the UK are linked to occupation.

Read more in-depth information on the causes of cancer.

section updated 07/12/11

*excluding non-melanoma skin cancer **age-standardised to the European population ***Hybrid method

section updated 07/12/11

More detailed statistics on all cancers combined can be found using these links: incidence, mortality, survival.