Cancer Survival in England, cancers diagnosed 2018 to 2022, followed up to 2023

This publication provides data for adults diagnosed with cancer between 2018 and 2022 and followed up to the end of 2023 in England. 

This publication uses a combination of both the standard NDRS main and NDRS detailed cancer groupings. These groupings cover a wide range of subtypes, which can require different treatments and have different outcomes. They were developed with input from patients, cancer charities, and clinicians, and will continue to evolve as medical knowledge and practice change. Two levels of grouping are used — “main” and “detailed” — explained further on our Standard cancer group definitions webpage.

For adults, 1- to 5-year net and overall survival estimates are provided by: 

• 103 NDRS cancer groups for males, females and persons (Table 1 of data download) 

• 43 NDRS cancer groups for males, females and persons by stage at diagnosis (Table 2 of data download) 

• 103 NDRS cancer groups for males, females and persons by deprivation quintile (Table 3 of data download) 

• 43 NDRS cancer groups for males, females and persons for each Government office region (GOR), Cancer alliance (CA) and Integrated care board (ICB) (Table 4 of the data download) 

Survival estimates for cancer of the testes (all, seminoma, non-seminoma and other) and prostate are presented for males only. Survival estimates for cancer of the cervix, ovary (all, borderline, malignant epithelial, sex cord-stromal and germ cell, miscellaneous and unspecified, and non-specific), uterus (all, endometrial and non-endometrial), vagina and endometrial stromal sarcoma are presented for females only. 

Patients have been excluded where a sex-specific diagnosis code does not match the person-stated gender.  This may have excluded some transgender and non-binary patients. More information about this is available on the Inequalities in cancer page of our website.

We report survival by age group and for all ages combined. To allow comparisons, net survival estimates are age-standardised using the International Cancer Survival Standard (ICSS). Confidence intervals are provided to indicate the precision of survival estimates. 

Survival estimates are only presented if they met the validation criteria.

Some of the net survival estimates are over 100%. This means fewer people are dying than would be expected in the general population. 

Further information on the methods can be found in the Methodology chapter and the Cancer survival methodology documents. 

Updates to methodology 

• National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) cancer groups are now used to present survival estimates (previously based solely on ICD-10) for adult cancers.  The groups are defined using either ICD-O-2, ICD-O-3, or ICD-10 depending on the cancer group. The data presented is a combination of both the NDRS main and NDRS detailed cancer groups. This means that the results reported in this publication are not directly comparable with previous iterations of this publication. Cancer survival estimates will be calculated using these cancer groups for cancers diagnosed from 2013 in a future publication of the back series and in future iterations of this publication series. 

• Lifetables by government office region (GOR) have been updated using the 2021 census Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs). These are then matched to the appropriate Index of Multiple Deprivation quintile (IMD 2019 for 2014 onwards, IMD 2015 for 2012 and 2013) for both deaths and populations. 

• R statistical software is now used for all analysis. 

Please refer to the Methodological change notice for more information on all these updates.