Publication, Part of Cancer registrations statistics, England
Cancer Registration Statistics, England, 2021 - Full release
National statistics, Accredited official statistics
Summary
This publication reports on newly diagnosed cancers registered in England during 2021. It includes this summary report showing key findings, spreadsheet tables with more detailed estimates, and a methodology document.
Cancer registration estimates are provided for:
- Incidence of cancer using groupings that incorporate both the location and type of cancer by combinations of gender, age, geographic region, deprivation, and stage at diagnosis (where appropriate)
- Incidence and mortality (using ICD-10 3-digit codes) by gender and age group for England
What's changed in this release
This publication updates the October 2023 release of incidence counts to include estimates of rates of cancer incidence and mortality. Following the 2021 census, the populations (as denominators) required to produce the rates of this publication have now been released at the level of detail needed for this publication.
This publication will report on 2021 cancer registrations only, trends will not be reported as the required re-stated populations for 2012 to 2020 are not expected to be published until Autumn 2024.
To better reflect the variety of cancers that patients are diagnosed and treated with, this publication introduces new cancer groupings. The different groupings introduced have been consulted upon with patient representatives, charities and clinicians. The groups are defined using either ICD-O-2, ICD-O-3 or ICD-10 dependent on the cancer group. Please refer to 'Methodological change notice, 2021 registrations' and 'Appendix A - Cancer group definitions' in the Resources below.
Key Facts
Cancer diagnoses returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2021
There were 329,665 new cancer diagnoses in 2021, on average 903 a day, which is 2,491 more than 2019 and 40,912 more than 2020.
The Fry and Turnbull effect on prostate cancer diagnoses appears to have ended
There were 43,378 new prostate cancer diagnoses in 2021, which is 6,432 fewer diagnoses than in 2018 and 4,101 fewer diagnoses than in 2019. In 2017, there were 41,201 diagnoses of prostate cancer.
Bowel cancer is now the third most common cancer
For the first time this century, there were more diagnoses of bowel cancer (41,596) than lung cancer (39,635).
Previous releases of these statistics can be found at the Cancer registration statistics for England Collection link below.
Acknowledgments
This work uses data that has been provided by patients and collected by the NHS as part of their care and support. The data is collated, maintained and quality assured by the National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service, which is part of NHS England.
Data sets
Counts and rates of cancer diagnoses and deaths in tables.
Resources
Last edited: 23 May 2024 10:39 am