Cancer projections for all cancers combined

Past and projected trends of incidence for all cancers combined are presented here, as published in the British Journal of Cancer in October 2011.

The incidence data used for all cancers past trends was 1975-2007 and the projection is for 2008-2030.

About the cancer incidence projections project
Projections for all cancers combined

Projections for all cancers combined by sex
References

The cancer incidence projections project was undertaken by a team at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Queen Mary University of London, as part of a Cancer Research UK programme grant. This has resulted in the paper by Mistry et al (2011).1 Cancer incidence projections are useful for a range of stakeholders in order to estimate the cancer burden in the future. Some of the graphs and tables on this page use details not included in the scientific publication. These were kindly provided by the authors with permission of the British Journal of Cancer.

section reviewed 15/12/11
section updated 15/12/11

There was a steady rise in European age-standardised incidence rates from around 300 per 100,000 people in the late 1970s until the late 1990s when rates began to stabilise at around 370 per 100,000. However, adjusting for the growing population, cancer rates are expected to remain stable until 2030. (Figure 5.1, based on Figure 1 in Mistry et al BJC 2011)

The change in the incidence rates from the late 70’s to late 90’s was due a combination of factors; most important, however, are changes in lifestyle such as smoking, drinking and bodyweight, screening detecting more breast cancers and Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) testing detecting more prostate cancers.

Figure 5.1: All Malignant Neoplasms Excluding Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer (C00-C97 excl. C44), European Age-Standardised Incidence Rates, Persons, UK, 1975-2030

proj_inc_asr_all.swf

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The data in this chart were kindly provided by the authors with permission of the British Journal of Cancer.

The increase in number of cases (which is driven by the aging and expanding population) was more dramatic than the increase in rates rising from around 180,000 in the late 1970s to 260,000 in the late 1990 and is now at over 300,000 people per year in the UK (Table 5.1).1 Going forward the fact that people are living longer is likely to be the biggest driver of increased number of cancer diagnoses.

Table 5.1: All Malignant Neoplasms Excluding Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer (C00-C97 excl. C44), Number of New Cases and European Age-Standardised Incidence Rates, UK, 1975-2030.

		Number of Cases			Age Standardised Rate per 100,000
Data Type	Year	Male	Female	Persons	Male	Female	Persons
Actual Data	1975	93,939	91,463	185,403	353.6	264.3	295.5
	1980	103,132	101,086	204,218	372.7	282.8	313.7
	1985	114,039	114,447	228,486	394.2	309.4	337.6
	1990	119,071	122,505	241,576	396.5	325.9	348.0
	1995	129,833	130,724	260,557	412.0	336.1	361.7
	2000	138,376	139,546	277,921	417.0	350.9	374.0
	2005	147,672	147,640	295,312	416.5	359.8	380.8
	2007	149,172	148,716	297,888	408.5	356.9	376.6
Projected Data	2010	161,065	156,498	317,563	415.3	359.8	381.8
	2015	178,040	167,052	345,092	413.8	360.0	382.4
	2020	196,364	178,035	374,399	411.0	357.4	380.4
	2025	214,662	189,800	404,462	407.7	353.7	377.2
	2030	231,026	200,929	431,956	404.6	350.0	373.9

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The data in this table were kindly provided by the authors with permission of the British Journal of Cancer. These results were presented graphically in the paper by Mistry et al 2011.

section reviewed 15/12/11
section updated 15/12/11

The age-standardised rates for men are currently approximately 15% higher than women. This difference between the sexes is expected to remain similar in the future as they are both set to remain stable (in both cases they decrease slightly by around 2% over 20 years from 2007 to 2030 (Figure 5.1). Currently, the number of cases in males and females is very similar with the male:female ratio of 1:1 (Table 5.1).1

By 2030, the increase in the number of cancer cases in males means that in the future there will be approximately 35,000 more cases in males than females in 2030, with the male:female ratio being 1.18:1. The number of cancer cases in men is expected to rise by more than 50 per cent to over 236,000 in 2030 whereas cancer cases among women are forecast to increase by 37 per cent (around 148,600 in 2007 to over 200,500 in 2030) (Table 5.1).1 The rates are higher in men than in women due to the larger female population (particularly in older age groups).

section reviewed 15/12/11
section updated 15/12/11