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 1000092 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 18 March, 2024.
  • 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 13 May, 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”.
  • 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 25961 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 16441 63 50.7
M 9520 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 2901 4166 1483
Prostate cancer <5 44 1182 1895
Colorectal cancer 112 410 1013 801
Malignant melanoma 417 626 681 394
Lymphoma 419 340 421 271
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 81 108 186 140
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 32 57 55
Top 20 Cancers Total 3025 5860 9647 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 68 620 2919 5576
Prostate cancer 0 0 0 130 2992
Colorectal cancer 0 26 89 528 1693
Malignant melanoma <5 39 270 609 1198
Lymphoma 6 106 204 346 789
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 34 123 343
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 9 26 114
Top 20 Cancers Total 17 458 2125 6244 15809
Other Cancers Total <5 49 119 291 877



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), 49461 UK Biobank participants have been diagnosed with malignant cancer, with a mean age at diagnosis of 66.7. Of these, 46% were women.

Sex N Percent Mean Age at Diagnosis
F 22765 46 65.4
M 26696 54 67.8


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 1090 5254 4625
Breast cancer 619 2142 3983 2017
Colorectal cancer 99 806 2438 2248
Lung cancer 33 373 1572 1836
Malignant melanoma 130 542 1147 924
Lymphoma 60 361 969 913
Uterine cancer 27 317 702 443
Kidney cancer 20 210 610 478
Pancreatic cancer 14 138 509 567
Leukaemia 26 176 516 507
Bladder cancer 10 82 439 514
Oesophageal cancer 8 109 434 422
Ovarian cancer 40 209 408 313
Multiple myeloma 24 111 342 385
Brain cancer 37 136 356 237
Stomach cancer 12 96 261 309
Liver cancer 8 78 229 287
Thyroid cancer 23 125 169 86
Mesothelioma <5 23 156 215
Tongue cancer 7 84 124 84
Top 20 Cancers Total 1240 7208 20618 17410
Other Cancers Total 131 557 1336 1035


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
Prostate cancer 1315 768 841 876 917 917 999 945 1272 1152 876 132 <5
Breast cancer 1446 760 708 765 773 779 723 720 738 724 531 90 <5
Colorectal cancer 805 446 457 433 444 442 492 495 443 570 477 83 <5
Lung cancer 434 228 307 287 308 369 353 358 356 388 369 55 <5
Malignant melanoma 388 188 188 226 229 259 287 239 232 263 205 34 5
Lymphoma 292 174 170 211 172 212 226 190 193 240 202 21 0
Uterine cancer 215 120 142 112 123 130 130 112 140 128 119 18 0
Kidney cancer 146 87 110 120 104 115 118 128 120 158 99 13 0
Pancreatic cancer 121 69 85 86 98 112 122 124 122 142 123 24 0
Leukaemia 156 89 72 113 113 117 104 124 103 121 107 5 <5
Bladder cancer 147 88 87 69 93 72 90 89 94 114 90 11 <5
Oesophageal cancer 124 63 77 77 76 80 89 88 110 95 81 12 <5
Ovarian cancer 161 72 72 86 78 72 87 81 83 80 89 9 0
Multiple myeloma 80 48 56 74 73 75 81 105 78 106 74 10 <5
Brain cancer 111 67 52 57 72 77 59 66 69 70 56 10 0
Stomach cancer 88 45 56 51 47 47 65 70 58 70 69 11 <5
Liver cancer 60 35 42 32 54 58 64 52 62 64 61 16 <5
Thyroid cancer 55 37 32 38 29 30 37 35 33 44 28 5 0
Mesothelioma 62 29 32 34 44 38 34 35 31 31 20 5 0
Tongue cancer 42 19 23 34 22 22 21 22 32 29 31 <5 <5
Top 20 Cancers Total 6248 3432 3609 3781 3869 4023 4181 4078 4369 4589 3707 565 25
Other Cancers Total 390 221 254 267 240 267 249 282 286 289 260 52 <5