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)
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 |
Figure 1: 20 most common prevalent cancer diagnoses within the UK
Biobank cohort
Figure 2: 20 most common prevalent cancers within the UK Biobank
cohort by sex
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 |
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 |
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 |
Figure 3: 20 most common incident cancer diagnoses within the UK
Biobank cohort