Cancer Survival in England, cancers diagnosed 2015 to 2019, followed up to 2020

This bulletin provides data for adults diagnosed with cancer between 2015 and 2019 and followed up to 2020, and children diagnosed with cancer between 2002 and 2019 and followed up to 2020. For adults, breakdowns (gender and deprivation) are available for 1-year to 5-year net cancer survival in adults for 31 common cancers. For 23 of these cancers, 1-year to 5-year net cancer survival estimates by stage at diagnosis are also presented. Cancer survival by local geographies are also included, with breakdowns by CA, STPs and NHS Regions for 21 cancer sites and trend estimates for 1-year and 5-year net survival for adults between 2006 to 2010 and 2015 to 2019.

Survival estimates are presented for males, females and persons. We present survival for cancer of the testis, prostate and larynx only in males and for cervix, ovary, uterus, vulva in females. We report survival by age group and for all ages combined. To allow comparisons, estimates are age-standardised using the International Cancer Survival Standard (ICSS). Confidence intervals are provided in datasets to indicate the precision of survival estimates.

Survival estimates are only presented if sufficient data were available to make robust estimates of survival. Further information on the methods can be found in the Cancer survival Quality and Methodology Information report

For the first time, this bulletin includes a summary of cancer survival by Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). The IMD is the official measure of relative deprivation for small areas in England and is based on the postcode of residence at diagnosis. The IMD was grouped into quintiles, which were weighted so that the quintiles were equal in terms of the number of Lower-layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs).

The method to create lifetables has been updated to include the IMD as the measure of deprivation whereas previously only Income domain from the IMD was used. In addition, there has been a minor revision to the methodology used to create the lifetables. A full description of previous methodology can be found on the ONS website with a description of new lifetable methodology available on the NHS Digital website.

ICD-10 revision 5 was introduced in 2013. This bulletin and accompanying data tables codes all cancers according to ICD-10 revision 5 for patients diagnosed from 2013 onwards. All previous years are coded according to the original ICD-10. Any trends must be interpreted with caution as this could be an artefact of a changing coding system rather than any true changes in survival over time (see Impact paper on ICD-10 revision 5 for more detail).

A detailed impact paper of methodology changes for cancer survival is available from the NHS Digital website which explains changes made and the impact of how this effects the survival statistics produced.