Cancer Registration Statistics, England, 2023

This section concentrates on the main NDRS cancer groups defined using a mixture of ICD-O-3 and ICD-10 as described in the Introduction.

The 15 most common main cancer groups cover 90% of diagnoses in 2023 excluding the most common skin cancers Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC) and cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma (cSCC).

Excluding BCC and cSCC, half of all registered cancer diagnoses (50%) continue to be found in the 4 most common main cancer groups: prostate, breast, lung, or bowel.

In 2022, the NHS with Prostate Cancer UK delivered a six-week campaign from mid-February  resulting in an all-time high number of urgent referrals for suspected cancer in March 2022.  Prostate cancer has been the most diagnosed cancer since 2022 increasing 24% between 2021 and 2022 and 6% between 2022 and 2023. In 2023, there were 58,137 new prostate cancer diagnoses.

Figure 1 shows the number of new diagnoses of the 25 most common cancer groups split by gender. More detailed breakdowns by type of cancer and age are available in the downloadable data tables.

Figure 1: Number of diagnoses of the 25 most common cancers registered split by gender, England, 2023