UK breast cancer statistics and Cancer Research UK
For UK-wide breast cancer figures on new cases, deaths and survival, the standard source is Cancer Research UK, and every figure quoted needs a citation.
Remember
Use Cancer Research UK as the standard source for UK-wide breast cancer new cases, deaths and survival, and cite the source and the years a figure covers; a population figure is not an individual's risk.
For UK-wide breast cancer numbers, the standard source is Cancer Research UK (CRUK), a UK cancer charity. Its Cancer Statistics for the UK hub is for health professionals and has a page for each cancer type. Other bodies are not the best fit: the Office for National Statistics published cancer registration bulletins for England, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer estimates cancer statistics for the whole world.
The hub reports incidence (the number of new cases diagnosed each year), mortality (the number of deaths) and survival (the proportion of patients still alive after a set time). It also reports early diagnosis (the share of cancers found at stage I or II, the earlier stages). The route to diagnosis is how a patient first came to be investigated, for example an urgent suspected cancer referral from a GP, NHS breast screening, or an emergency presentation, such as arriving in hospital acutely unwell.
These figures are built from cancer registries, official databases that record every cancer diagnosis and death in a population. The registries are held separately in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and Cancer Research UK collects them into one UK picture. Registry data are updated over time, so figures from different dates can differ slightly, and each headline figure carries the years it describes: for example, 59,413 new invasive breast cancers a year is dated 2019, 2021-2022, UK.
That is why a statistic needs a citation. A reference lets the reader trace a figure to its source and judge how reliable and up to date it is. A population figure also does not describe one person: the lifetime risk of breast cancer for UK women is about 1 in 7, but that does not give any one woman her own risk.
Key facts
- Standard source
- Cancer Research UK is the standard source for UK-wide breast cancer figures; single-nation registries cover only their own nation.
- Deaths and survival
- Cancer Research UK reports about 11,200 breast cancer deaths a year in the UK (2022-2024) and about 77% of females with breast cancer surviving 10 years or more.
- Early diagnosis
- In England in 2022, 85% of breast cancers with a known stage were diagnosed at stage I or II; similar figures were 84% in Northern Ireland and Scotland and 83% in Wales, each with its own year attached.
- Routes to diagnosis
- In England in 2019, 53% of breast cancers were diagnosed through an urgent suspected cancer referral, 32% through screening and 4% through an emergency presentation.
- Overweight and obesity
- In the UK, about 8% of breast cancers are attributed to overweight and obesity. This kind of figure is an attributable fraction, the proportion of cases that would not have happened without the risk factor. Fat tissue contains aromatase, an enzyme that converts androgens (hormones such as testosterone) into oestrogens, so more body fat means more oestrogen. The effect matters most after the menopause, when the ovaries have stopped making oestrogen and fat becomes the main source.
- Limits
- Population figures describe groups, so they do not give one patient an exact risk, a treatment plan or proof of a genetic cause.
Exam traps
- A lifetime risk of developing breast cancer is not a case-fatality estimate (the proportion of people with a disease who die from it), so it does not describe prognosis after diagnosis.
- Longer survival from diagnosis in screened groups is tempting evidence that screening helps, but earlier detection creates lead-time bias, in which finding the cancer earlier can lengthen survival measured from diagnosis. Screening benefit is assessed using reductions in cancer mortality.
- Subtracting annual deaths from new diagnoses does not give prevalence (the number of people living with a cancer diagnosis), because prevalence includes people still alive who were diagnosed in earlier years.
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