Cancer registration statistics

Cancer registration statistics are used to measure the occurrence of cancer within the population of England. Cancer incidence, used alongside cancer prevalence, mortality, and survival, can determine the overall burden of cancer, which can inform cancer policies and programmes, inform cancer research, raise cancer awareness and brief government ministers. 

The dashboard provides an interactive way to select cancer incidence and mortality counts and rates (age-specific, non-standardised and age-standardised) for different cancer groupings for any year(s) between 2001 and 2023. 

This dashboard is provided alongside the Cancer registration statistics, England publication series, this publication provides a summary report showing key findings, downloadable spreadsheet tables with detailed estimates, and a methodology document.

Acknowledgement

This work uses data that has been provided by patients and collected by the NHS as part of their care and support. The data are collated, maintained and quality assured by the National Disease Registration Service, which is part of NHS England.

Users of cancer registration statistics include government organisations, health policymakers, cancer charities, academics and researchers, cancer registries, the public, and the media.

Cancer registration statistics are used to:

• measure the occurrence of cancer within the population of England
• aide policymakers to determine the overall burden of cancer, which can inform cancer policies and programmes
• inform cancer research
• feed into cancer information such as leaflets, web pages, and campaigns to raise cancer awareness
• produce Accredited Official Statistics on cancer survival (in conjunction with mortality data), which is used to support policy on prevention and treatment; as well as to monitor cancer performance indicators
• brief Government Ministers and respond to Parliamentary questions
• provide bespoke, aggregated tables in response to customer enquiries

Cancer registration estimates are provided for:

1. Incidence of cancer using National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) cancer groups (these incorporate both the location and type of cancer) by:
   • combinations of gender, age group, and stage at diagnosis and deprivation (where appropriate) for England, 2013 to 2023
   • combinations of gender, age group, and stage at diagnosis and deprivation (where appropriate) for English regions, Cancer alliances and Integrated care boards, 2013 to 2022
   • combinations of gender and age group for Upper tier local authorities (UTLAs), Local authority/unitary authority (LAUA) and Middle layer super output areas (MSOA) 2013 to 2022
2. Incidence and mortality of cancer (using ICD-10 3-digit codes) by gender and age group for England, 2001 to 2023

The dashboard allows users to select the cancer groups, geographies, genders, diagnosis years, deprivation quintiles, and stages at diagnosis of interest. This will produce a table of counts and rates which can be viewed within the dashboard or downloaded. When multiple geographies or age groups are selected, users can combine these to create bespoke groupings.

For information on the background and methods used to generate the data presented in this dashboard, please refer to the Cancer Registrations Statistics, England, publication series and the Cancer Registrations Statistics: Quality and Methodology Information publication

Cancer incidence rate

A cancer incidence rate is the number of new cancer registrations made in a year within a population. The rate is expressed per 100,000 population.

Cancer incidence rate = (number of cancer registrations/population) x 100,000.

Cancer mortality rate

A cancer mortality rate is the number of deaths caused by a cancer in a year within a population. The rate is expressed per 100,000 population.

Cancer mortality rate = (number of cancer deaths/population) x 100,000.

Age-standardised rates

Age-standardised rates are a weighted average of the age-specific cancer rates. All age-standardised rates published since June 2014 have used the 2013 European Standard Population (ESP). The ESP is a set of weights for a population structure, based on an average European age-profile of a population.

The weights are applied to age-specific rates to produce age-standardised rates. Age-standardised rates allow users to make fair comparisons of cancer diagnoses or deaths:

• across different regions in England
• with other countries in the UK or Europe
• between different time periods

For persons, rates are standardised by both age and gender.

Note: the ESP has an upper age band of 95 and older. England population estimates produced by Office of National Statistics (ONS) currently have an upper age band of 90 and older. This means NDRS must combine the weights for the 90-94 and 95 and older age bands. The upper age band for incidence or mortality calculations is also 90 and older.

The next release of the dashboard will be published early 2026. This release will include 2023 data for sub-national estimates.

Subsets of data can be downloaded from the dashboard after the user has made their selection based on cancer groups, geographies, genders, diagnosis years, deprivation quintiles, and stages at diagnosis of interest. For a full data download please refer to the most recent publication of the Cancer registration statistics, England publication series.

The dashboards are produced by the National Disease Registration Service (NDRS). Please send any feedback or queries to ndrsenquiries@nhs.net 

Please do not include sensitive or patient identifiable information.