1 Introduction

The UK Biobank receives cancer diagnoses for participants on a regular basis through linkage to national cancer registries. In this report we present summary statistics on the most common malignant cancer diagnoses within the UK Biobank cohort (excluding benign, non-malignant and unspecified cancers). The numbers of cases of cancers is provided by broad cancer groupings (according to ICD10 or ICD9 codes)

1.1 Information on this report

  • This report was created on the 30 June, 2023.
  • This report includes complete follow-up up to the current UK Biobank censoring date for cancer registry data.
  • The latest cancer registry record linked to UKBiobank data was the 01 June, 2022
  • A report summarising all prevalent and incident cancers (including benign, non-malignant and unspecified cancers) can be found here in the report entitled “Cancer Numbers Report”.



2 Summary of Prevalent Cancers

Prevalent cancers were those diagnosed prior to recruitment to the Biobank study (prior to the baseline assessment). If a participant was diagnosed with a particular cancer both before and after baseline, only the prevalent cancer is counted. If there were several dates of diagnoses for a particular cancer, the earliest date is counted. If at the earliest date, a participant received diagnoses for multiple types of malignant prevalent cancer the participant is counted for each cancer type for which they were diagnosed.

Prior to recruitment to the Biobank study 25555 participants had been diagnosed with cancer with a mean age at diagnosis of 52.2. Of these, 64% were women.

Sex N Percent Mean Age at Diagnosis
F 16252 64 50.8
M 9303 36 54.7


2.1 Top 20 most common prevalent cancers


Figure 1: 20 most common prevalent cancer diagnoses within the UK Biobank cohort



2.2 Top 20 prevalent cancers by sex

Figure 2: 20 most common prevalent cancers within the UK Biobank cohort by sex


2.3 Top 20 prevalent cancers by age at diagnosis


Table 1: 20 most common prevalent cancers stratified by age at diagnosis
Type <40 years 40 - 49 years 50 - 59 years 60+ years
Breast cancer 618 2852 4140 1507
Prostate cancer 2 45 1171 1867
Colorectal cancer 102 397 995 799
Malignant melanoma 399 573 641 364
Lymphoma 381 316 401 263
Cervical cancer 542 299 70 9
Uterine cancer 31 143 462 249
Testicular cancer 360 218 90 16
Ovarian cancer 120 171 232 125
Bladder cancer 58 121 235 174
Leukaemia 81 103 187 140
Kidney cancer 29 99 215 146
Thyroid cancer 71 97 115 39
Lung cancer 20 50 133 105
Multiple myeloma 3 29 82 72
Other connective, soft tissue cancer 48 43 60 31
Laryngeal cancer 7 35 85 54
Mouth cancer 29 41 65 39
Tongue cancer 14 45 68 26
Stomach cancer 5 32 52 55
Top 20 Cancers Total 2920 5709 9499 6080
Other Cancers Total 238 356 483 286


2.4 Top 20 prevalent cancers by year of diagnosis


Table 2: 20 most common prevalent cancers by decade of diagnosis
Type <1970s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000 to Recruitment
Breast cancer 1 59 598 2805 5654
Prostate cancer 0 0 1 124 2960
Colorectal cancer 0 23 87 489 1694
Malignant melanoma 1 50 237 538 1151
Lymphoma 5 93 178 302 783
Cervical cancer 2 57 403 314 144
Uterine cancer 0 5 39 202 639
Testicular cancer 1 55 192 226 210
Ovarian cancer 2 20 55 171 400
Bladder cancer 0 12 60 201 315
Leukaemia 1 14 33 119 344
Kidney cancer 1 3 20 88 377
Thyroid cancer 0 15 27 78 202
Lung cancer 0 1 20 60 227
Multiple myeloma 0 0 3 21 162
Other connective, soft tissue cancer 1 11 28 44 98
Laryngeal cancer 0 2 14 42 123
Mouth cancer 1 10 14 39 110
Tongue cancer 0 1 9 33 110
Stomach cancer 0 0 9 22 113
Top 20 Cancers Total 16 431 2027 5918 15816
Other Cancers Total 3 59 127 298 876





3 Summary of Incident Cancers

Incident cancers are those diagnosed post recruitment to the Biobank study. If a participant has several dates of diagnoses for a particular cancer, only the first diagnosis is counted. If a participant has been diagnosed with multiple types of cancer, the participant is counted for each cancer type for which they were diagnosed.

Since recruitment (and up to the current censoring date), 46021 UK Biobank participants have been diagnosed with malignant cancer, with a mean age at diagnosis of 66.4. Of these, 47% were women.

Sex N Percent Mean Age at Diagnosis
F 21520 47 65.2
M 24501 53 67.5


3.1 Top 20 most common incident cancers


Figure 3: 20 most common incident cancer diagnoses within the UK Biobank cohort



3.2 Top 20 incident cancers by sex

Figure 4: 20 most common incident cancers within the UK Biobank cohort by sex


3.3 Top 20 incident cancers - breakdown by age at diagnosis


Table 3: 20 most common incident cancers stratified by age at diagnosis
Type 40 - 49 years 50 - 59 years 60 - 69 years 70+ years
Prostate cancer 41 1072 4926 4102
Breast cancer 610 2097 3811 1855
Colorectal cancer 97 789 2327 2031
Lung cancer 31 371 1504 1694
Malignant melanoma 124 501 991 717
Lymphoma 59 345 908 789
Uterine cancer 28 308 677 397
Kidney cancer 20 207 581 419
Pancreatic cancer 14 132 482 499
Leukaemia 24 165 478 425
Bladder cancer 9 79 398 452
Ovarian cancer 39 201 389 284
Oesophageal cancer 7 105 413 386
Multiple myeloma 20 107 321 347
Brain cancer 36 135 341 215
Stomach cancer 12 92 249 284
Liver cancer 8 74 222 252
Thyroid cancer 24 121 163 79
Mesothelioma 1 23 153 184
Tongue cancer 6 83 118 73
Top 20 Cancers Total 1210 7007 19452 15484
Other Cancers Total 128 541 1254 945


3.4 Top 20 incident cancers - breakdown by year of diagnosis


Table 4: 20 most common incident cancers by year of diagnosis
Type 2006-2010 (Recruitment) 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
Prostate cancer 1240 731 799 828 847 846 914 859 1160 1022 781 113 1
Breast cancer 1389 741 683 745 749 742 685 685 692 680 496 82 4
Colorectal cancer 759 433 431 422 423 420 460 451 402 524 439 76 4
Lung cancer 403 228 300 277 300 353 327 340 334 355 336 45 2
Malignant melanoma 357 166 169 189 199 220 248 200 184 214 160 23 4
Lymphoma 273 168 163 194 160 194 203 170 164 211 182 19 0
Uterine cancer 212 113 139 108 115 125 122 104 135 110 111 16 0
Kidney cancer 139 86 104 116 98 109 103 116 103 144 95 14 0
Pancreatic cancer 115 65 80 84 93 105 117 111 105 125 108 19 0
Leukaemia 140 85 65 103 111 100 89 108 92 104 90 4 1
Bladder cancer 126 77 78 68 91 66 77 81 85 102 77 9 1
Ovarian cancer 150 72 69 79 77 68 82 79 77 69 83 8 0
Oesophageal cancer 118 60 71 72 72 78 82 79 101 90 75 12 1
Multiple myeloma 73 44 53 71 68 71 75 94 71 98 66 9 2
Brain cancer 105 65 51 55 68 71 57 60 66 65 53 11 0
Stomach cancer 82 46 53 52 44 44 60 65 53 67 62 9 0
Liver cancer 59 33 42 31 49 53 59 47 51 60 54 16 2
Thyroid cancer 51 35 32 38 28 28 34 35 30 44 27 5 0
Mesothelioma 57 29 31 33 41 35 33 25 30 27 16 4 0
Tongue cancer 38 19 21 33 22 23 21 21 29 25 26 1 1
Top 20 Cancers Total 5886 3296 3434 3598 3655 3751 3848 3730 3964 4136 3337 495 23
Other Cancers Total 368 205 242 265 228 250 231 265 264 263 242 43 2