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, unspecified and undefined cancers). The numbers of cases of cancers is provided by broad cancer groupings according to ICD10 or ICD9 codes.

Malignancy in these reports is determined by reference to ICD10 code. There are other ways to determine malignancy, eg ICD-O morphology codes, which are also available in category 100092 of the UKB dataset.

ICD10 diagnosis code C44 - non-melanoma skin cancer - is excluded from the calculation of prevalent and incident cancers.

A cancer is classed as ‘undefined’ if it was recorded with an ICD9 code that does not unambiguously map to an ICD10 code.

1.1 Information on this report

  • This report was created on the 04 September, 2025.
  • 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 20 January, 2024
  • 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”.
  • Summary figures of fewer than five participants have been anonymised, per UK Biobank’s guidance on reporting for uncommon and geographical variables. Please refer to the Useful Links section of this page for more information.

2 Summary of Prevalent Malignant Cancers

Prevalent malignant 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 prevalent cancer the participant is counted for each cancer type for which they were diagnosed.

Prior to recruitment to the Biobank study 25949 participants had been diagnosed with malignant cancer with a mean age at diagnosis of 52.1. Of these, 63% were women.

Sex N Percent Mean Age at Diagnosis
F 16432 63 50.7
M 9517 37 54.6


2.1 Top 20 most common prevalent malignant cancers


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



2.2 Top 20 prevalent malignant cancers by sex

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


2.3 Top 20 prevalent malignant 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 634 2897 4165 1482
Prostate cancer <5 44 1182 1895
Colorectal cancer 112 409 1013 801
Malignant melanoma 416 625 680 394
Lymphoma 418 339 421 271
Cervical cancer 559 297 72 8
Uterine cancer 35 138 464 255
Testicular cancer 372 222 96 16
Ovarian cancer 121 175 230 121
Bladder cancer 61 125 244 175
Leukaemia 81 108 186 141
Kidney cancer 29 99 224 137
Thyroid cancer 74 97 113 39
Lung cancer 21 51 128 103
Multiple myeloma <5 33 84 73
Mouth cancer 34 44 70 41
Laryngeal cancer 8 36 87 57
Other connective, soft tissue cancer 25 36 61 32
Tongue cancer 14 46 68 25
Stomach cancer 5 31 57 55
Top 20 Cancers Total 3023 5852 9645 6121
Other Cancers Total 223 346 480 290


2.4 Top 20 prevalent malignant 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 <5 68 618 2917 5573
Prostate cancer 0 0 0 130 2992
Colorectal cancer 0 26 89 527 1693
Malignant melanoma <5 39 270 609 1195
Lymphoma 6 106 204 345 788
Cervical cancer <5 64 414 315 141
Uterine cancer 0 5 41 212 634
Testicular cancer <5 62 201 233 209
Ovarian cancer <5 20 57 173 395
Bladder cancer 0 14 62 210 319
Leukaemia <5 14 34 123 344
Kidney cancer <5 <5 20 94 371
Thyroid cancer 0 15 29 81 198
Lung cancer 0 <5 21 60 221
Multiple myeloma 0 0 <5 23 166
Mouth cancer <5 14 14 44 116
Laryngeal cancer 0 <5 14 46 125
Other connective, soft tissue cancer 0 <5 12 40 99
Tongue cancer 0 <5 10 32 110
Stomach cancer 0 0 8 26 114
Top 20 Cancers Total 18 458 2122 6240 15803
Other Cancers Total <5 49 120 291 876



3 Summary of Incident Malignant 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), 55746 UK Biobank participants have been diagnosed with malignant cancer, with a mean age at diagnosis of 67.3. Of these, 46% were women.

Sex N Percent Mean Age at Diagnosis
F 25555 46 66.1
M 30191 54 68.4


3.1 Top 20 most common incident malignant cancers


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



3.2 Top 20 incident malignant cancers by sex

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


3.3 Top 20 incident malignant 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 42 1169 5672 5668
Breast cancer 619 2283 4320 2448
Colorectal cancer 99 855 2615 2782
Lung cancer 33 383 1670 2216
Malignant melanoma 130 578 1231 1147
Lymphoma 60 387 1020 1120
Uterine cancer 26 341 761 532
Kidney cancer 20 223 654 612
Pancreatic cancer 14 144 547 715
Leukaemia 26 182 550 618
Bladder cancer 10 90 469 626
Oesophageal cancer 7 117 485 518
Ovarian cancer 40 221 439 374
Multiple myeloma 24 118 365 480
Brain cancer 37 140 380 292
Stomach cancer 13 103 278 376
Liver cancer 8 82 251 354
Thyroid cancer 23 138 181 101
Mesothelioma <5 23 157 254
Tongue cancer 7 91 134 106
Top 20 Cancers Total 1239 7668 22179 21339
Other Cancers Total 131 589 1431 1261


3.4 Top 20 incident malignant 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 2023
Prostate cancer 1315 768 841 876 917 918 1000 948 1276 1155 898 1143 452 44
Breast cancer 1445 760 708 765 772 779 723 720 738 724 534 704 259 39
Colorectal cancer 804 446 457 435 444 440 491 496 443 572 483 623 196 21
Lung cancer 434 228 307 287 308 369 354 359 358 389 376 364 152 17
Malignant melanoma 388 188 188 225 229 259 287 239 233 264 207 263 105 11
Lymphoma 292 174 170 211 172 213 227 191 195 243 206 210 81 <5
Uterine cancer 216 119 143 112 123 131 130 113 139 128 120 139 40 7
Kidney cancer 145 87 110 120 104 115 119 127 121 160 102 143 51 5
Pancreatic cancer 121 69 85 86 98 112 122 125 123 142 129 143 58 7
Leukaemia 157 89 72 113 113 122 106 124 103 123 113 94 39 8
Bladder cancer 147 88 87 69 93 72 91 90 95 114 90 116 34 9
Oesophageal cancer 125 63 77 76 76 80 89 88 110 96 83 108 51 5
Ovarian cancer 159 73 71 86 78 71 87 81 84 80 90 73 36 5
Multiple myeloma 80 48 56 74 73 75 81 105 78 107 80 90 38 <5
Brain cancer 111 67 52 57 72 77 59 66 69 71 58 65 20 5
Stomach cancer 87 45 56 51 47 47 65 70 59 68 69 71 34 <5
Liver cancer 60 35 42 32 54 59 64 52 62 65 65 81 21 <5
Thyroid cancer 55 37 32 38 29 30 37 35 33 44 31 36 5 <5
Mesothelioma 62 29 32 34 44 38 34 35 31 31 20 33 11 <5
Tongue cancer 42 19 23 34 22 22 21 22 32 29 31 27 11 <5
Top 20 Cancers Total 6245 3432 3609 3781 3868 4029 4187 4086 4382 4605 3785 4526 1694 196
Other Cancers Total 391 221 254 266 240 268 249 282 288 290 261 278 112 12