UK Liver Cancer incidence statistics

This page contains liver cancer incidence statistics for the UK with information by sex, by age, trends over time and liver cancer rates worldwide. The ICD code for liver cancer is ICD9 155, ICD10 C22.

Liver cancer incidence by sex

Liver cancer is within the top twenty most common cancers in UK (18th), with around 3,200 new cases diagnosed in 2006 ( Table 1.1). From the total 63% of the new cases are diagnosed in males giving a male:female ratio of around 5:3. 1-4

It has been estimated that the lifetime risk of developing liver cancer is 1 in 180 for men and 1 in 292 for women in the UK. These were calculated on February 2009 using incidence and mortality data for 2001-2005. 6

Table showing the number of cases and rates of liver cancer in the UK

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Liver cancer incidence by age

Figure 1.1 shows the age-specific cases and rates for liver cancer in the UK. Around 200 cases of liver cancer are registered in persons under 50 while around 7 in 10 cases occur in persons over 65 years old.

Figure showing the numbers of new cases and age-specific incidence rates by sex for liver cancer in the UK

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Incidence rates increase steeply with age and the highest rates occur in the oldest age groups. For those aged 85 and over the incidence rate per 100,000 men is 47 whilst for women it is 24.

Liver cancer incidence trends

In Great Britain the age-standardised incidence rates have more than doubled from 1.4 to 3.9 per 100,000 persons between 1975 and 2006 ( Figure 1.2).

Figure showing age standardised (European) incidence rates fo liver cancer, by sex, in GB

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The liver cancer incidence trend for the UK has increased from 2.5 to 3.9 per 100,000 persons between 1993 and 2006 ( Figure 1.3).

Figure showing the age-standardised (European) incidence rates for liver cancer in the UK

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Liver cancer incidence trends worldwide

Liver cancer is the sixth most commonly diagnosed cancer and the third most common cause of death from cancer worldwide. Prognosis for liver cancer is poor so incidence and mortality patterns are very similar.

There is a fourteen fold variation in male incidence rates between the different regions of the world and in women the difference is ten fold ( Figure 1.4). 5

Figure 1.4: Age-standardised incidence rates, liver cancer by region of the world and sex, 2002 estimates

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The highest rates are reported for Mongolia (99 in males and 57 in females) and Mozambique (79 and 42), while the lowest rates are recorded for Lebanon and Algeria at >1. Liver cancer is rare in the UK, male rates rank 140th of the 172 countries worldwide and female rates rank 136th.

The major risk factors for liver cancer are infection with hepatitis B and C and consumption of foods contaminated with aflatoxin. Hepatitis B is more common and the distribution of this infection worldwide largely explains differences in rates of liver cancer, with the exception of Japan that has high levels of infection with hepatitis C.

Updated: 19/08/2009 0:00

UK Liver Cancer mortality statistics

This page contains liver cancer mortality statistics including by age and sex and trends over time.

Liver cancer mortality rates by age and sex

In 2007, liver cancer caused 3,202 deaths in the UK. The annual number of deaths in the UK and its constituent countries together with the rates for the year 2007 are shown in Table 2.1.

Table 2.1: Number of deaths and mortality rates of liver cancer, UK

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The distribution of deaths by age for males and females separately are shown in Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1: Number of deaths and age-specific mortality rates, liver cancer, by sex, UK

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Liver cancer mortality trends

The age-standardised mortality rates between 1971 and 2007 for the UK are shown in Figure 2.2.

Figure 2.2: Age-standardised (European) mortality, liver cancer, by sex, UK

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Updated: 12/05/2009 0:00

Liver Cancer survival statistics

This page presents liver cancer survival statistics, including one year and five year survival from year of diagnosis and survival rates by age at diagnosis.