Cancer Reports

NCRAS prepares national, sub-national and cancer type specific analyses in collaboration with partner organisations.

We also prepare data briefings (short documents highlighting one issue and written for a wider general audience), cancer information tools targeted at particular audiences and guidance documents to support health service and other users in understanding and using the available information.

A range of other data on cancer in the UK are available from other organisations.

Most recent reports


13-24 year olds with cancer in England

In 2016, Teenage Cancer Trust and the National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service (NCRAS) established a partnership to gain a greater understanding of the current cancer landscape of teenagers and young adults. This detailed report provides updated statistics covering incidence, mortality and survival for 13-24 years old who were diagnosed in England up to the end of 2015.


Travel Times and Cancer Survival

Travel Times and Cancer Treatment

Historical data suggested that longer distance from a cancer Centre results in lower probability of curative treatment. Two reports present an update overview on this notion, one looking at survival relative to travel time and one examining treatment for prostate cancers relative to travel time to a radiotherapy centre. The full extent of the travel times work is available here


Childhood Cancer Statistics, England Annual report 2018

This detailed report provides updated statistics for childhood cancers, covering incidence, mortality, survival, prevalence and a number of clinical headline indicators. Along with the report, three additional appendices have also been published:


Cancer before, during and after pregnancy

There is little information on cancer before, during and after pregnancy, although it is known to be increasing alongside women delaying child bearing until older ages. This report summarises English data between 2012 and 2014, looking at the rate of cancer diagnosis in pregnant women and comparing these rates to the general population.


Chemotherapy, radiotherapy and tumour resection in England, 2013-14 V2 (February 2018)

This report introduces new data on the percentage of tumours diagnosed in England in 2013 - 2014 recorded as receiving radiotherapy, chemotherapy or tumour resection. It examines differences by cancer site and stage at diagnosis. The report explains how the data should be interpreted, summarises key results from the accompanying excel workbook, and highlights the methodology used.

The full breakdown of results is available in the accompanying workbook, where results are also broken down by year (2013, 2014).

The methodology is described in detail in the standard operating procedure CAS-SOP #4.2 Linking treatment tables – chemotherapy, tumour resections and radiotherapy.

Please note: The data behind this report will be updated in July 2018 to include 2015 diagnoses. This will be available on the main cancer treatments webpage.

The short report, workbook and Standard Operating Procedure documents have been updated in February 2018, replacing the previous versions. This update was required to correct a minor error in the method used to identify radiotherapy. The correction removes brachytherapy from the definition of radiotherapy, which was previously included in error. This notably affects the proportion of tumours recorded to have been treated with radiotherapy for two cancer sites – uterine and prostate.


Radiotherapy activity across England (June 2017)

This report uses the radiotherapy dataset to demonstrate the number, crude rate and age standardised rate of radiotherapy episodes across England from 2009 to 2016. The information has been broken down by SCN, CCG, gender and broad age band.

Two workbooks below include the data used in the reports:


Deprivation and cancer: in search of a common measure across England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland (November 2016)

This report examines whether there is a common metric within the deprivation measures that can be applied across the five countries of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland. There are no consistent deprivation indices between the five countries, each of which currently uses a number of different metrics and methodologies. As part of our analyses to find a common metric, we compared cancer incidence and mortality rates in each country after controlling for the effects of deprivation.


Linking English Cancer Patient Experience Surveys 2010, 2011/12 and 2013 with cancer registration data (October 2015)

This report covers the first stage of a project to link each year of the English CPES data from the 2010, 2011/2012 and 2013 surveys to the tumour table in the Cancer Analysis System in order to create merged datasets for analyses and research.


Cancer statistics: availability and location (July 2015)

This document aims to provide an overview about cancer statistics, including information on the latest statistics publicly available and where to find them. This is intended to be a useful reference guide for infrequent users of cancer statistics or for audiences that may not be familiar with this information. This document is structured using key chapters in the Improving Outcomes: a Strategy for Cancer.


Cancer and equality groups: key metrics 2015 (July 2015)

This is the third report published for the National Cancer Equality Initiative (NCEI) by the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) on cancer and equality groups. It builds on previous reports to give a clear picture of where there are differences between groups in aspects of cancer patients’ diagnosis, care and outcomes.


Major resections by routes to diagnosis (2006 to 2010; England)

This report presents major resection rates - the proportion of patients who have had surgery to remove a cancer between 2006 and 2010 - by Route to Diagnosis and by sex in England, for a wide range of cancers. It has been produced by the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) in partnership with Cancer Research UK (CRUK). 


Rare and less common cancers: incidence and mortality in England, 2010-2013(June 2015)

This report, published byCancer52 and the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) reports on cancers considered rare and less common. The report contains a list of sites and codes for a large number of sites not routinely reported, as well as reporting numbers and crude rates for incidence and mortality for these sites for England between 2010 and 2013. 


Cancer and equality groups: key metrics 2014 (June 2014)

In 2013, the National Cancer Equality Initiative (NCEI) and the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) published a baseline report on cancer and equality groups. The purpose was to establish a series of metrics relating to equality groups and cancer that would provide a basis to measure change, whether positive or negative. The rationale was simple: it is impossible to tackle inequalities without data to inform activity and scrutinise progress. This follow up report brings together updated information and intelligence, and highlights where differences by equality groups exist so that we can work to reduce inequalities. It also shows what improved data quality will allow us to do in the future to improve our understanding further.


What cancer statistics are available and where can I find them? (June 2014)

This document aims to provide an overview about cancer statistics, including information on the latest statistics publicly available and where to find them. This is intended to be a useful reference guide for infrequent users of cancer statistics or for audiences that may not be familiar with this information. This document is structured using key chapters in the Improving Outcomes: a Strategy for Cancer.


Cancer by Deprivation in England 1996 - 2011 (May 2014)

This report, produced in partnership with Cancer Research UK, examines the most recently available cancer incidence and mortality in England, with the population split into five quintiles using the income domain of the English Indices of Deprivation. Many factors impact on the likelihood of developing cancer, these include being a non-smoker, consuming less alcohol, being of a healthy weight, and eating healthily.  These factors are hard to measure at a population level, but are known to vary with socio-economic deprivation.


Kidney Cancer: Survival Report (April 2014)

This report examines trends in survival of kidney cancer, in England, over the most recent 20 years of data available 1990-2010. This report also endeavours to examine how one and five year survival rates of kidney cancer are influenced by sex, the histological cell type of the tumour, the grade of differentiation and the stage at presentation.


Quality and Completeness of Gynaecological Cancer Data in the National Cancer Data Repository 2010 (March 2014)

The first gynaecological cancer quality and completeness report was produced using the 2008 version of the NCDR, however, as the current NCDR has been compiled differently, it is important to assess the quality of the most recent data items and identify changes over time. As with the first report, the aim of this report is to assess the quality of key gynaecological cancer patient and tumour data items available in the NCDR, to allow an understanding of how the data may be used at UK level. This will provide a useful reference to those wanting to understand the scope of the NCDR in relation to gynaecological cancer specific projects, whilst also influencing improvements in the collection of gynaecological data, not only in the compilation of the NCDR, but also at the registration process level.


Rare Urological Cancers (March 2014)

Rare urological cancers are defined here as cancer of the penis, testes, ureter & renal pelvis, plus bladder cancers of the non-transitional cell type and prostate cancer of the small cell type. Reports regarding these malignancies are uncommon, possibly due to their comparative rarity when compared with other malignancies.

This report attempts to address this imbalance and be a source of information for clinicians, commissioners, charitable bodies and those with an interest in this group of tumours.To determine whether the incidence, mortality and survival rates for the rarer tumours is actually changing, and whether there is variation over the time periods studied, the NCIN Urology SSCRG has commissioned a breakdown report on these rare urological cancers in England.


Bone and Soft Tissue Sarcomas - Changes to Pathology Codes in the 4th Edition of the World Health Organisation Classification of Bone and Soft Tissue Sarcomas (February 2014)

Pathology techniques are continually improving, resulting in the reclassification of tumours and the identification of new morphological types and sub-types. Over the last twenty years, many new types of sarcoma have been defined, including Ewing’s sarcoma and, more recently, gastro-intestinal stromal tumour (GIST). The 4th edition of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Classification of Tumours of Soft Tissue and Bone was published in 2012 and updates the classifications included in the 3rd edition which was published in 2002.

The Public Health England Knowledge and Intelligence Team (West Midlands) is the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) national lead analytical team for bone and soft tissue sarcomas. As such, it is important that any coding changes or additions in the 4th edition of the WHO classification are acknowledged and used in the analyses undertaken. This report compares the 3rd and 4th editions of “Tumours of Soft Tissue and Bone”, and discusses the implications of key changes on reported bone and soft tissue sarcoma incidence and survival rates.


Outline of Uterine Cancer in the United Kingdom: Incidence, Mortality and Survival (October 2013)

This report presents the latest time trends, trends by age, and regional variations in incidence, mortality and survival for malignant uterine tumours in the UK. There is also a separate section on these cases stratified according to their main morphological groups. This report has been produced by Public Health England’s Knowledge and Intelligence Team (East Midlands) (formerly part of Trent Cancer Registry), the NCIN’s lead for gynaecological cancers, on behalf of the NCIN Gynaecological Site Specific Clinical Reference Group (SSCRG). These data should be of interest to all those involved in the commissioning and delivery of services to prevent, diagnose, and treat uterine cancer. 


Estimated Completeness of ascertainment for childhood cancer in the UK, 2005-2010 (September 2013)

This report presents estimated completeness of ascertainment for childhood cancer in the UK, 2005-2010, the most recent period for which registration by the National Registry of Childhood Tumours (NRCT) has been declared complete. The most recent published estimates of completeness of ascertainment of childhood cancer in Britain by the NRCT cover years 2003-2004 1.  

The purpose of this report is to assess whether NCRT is under reporting ascertainment of childhood cancers or not.


Bone and Soft Tissue Sarcomas UK Incidence and Survival: 1996 to 2010 (July 2013)

Primary bone and soft tissue sarcomas are an exceptionally rare form of cancer, collectively accounting for only 1% of all malignancies diagnosed. This report fills a void in publicly available data describing the incidence and survival of patients diagnosed with primary bone or soft tissue sarcoma in the UK.  The report considers overall UK incidence and survival rates, and examines variations amongst the four UK countries.  Differences between UK countries in the most common histologies and anatomical sites are also discussed.


Simplifying the measurement of co-morbidities and their influence on chemotherapy toxicity (July 2013)

Cytotoxic chemotherapy is used in the treatment of cancer to reduce the risks of disease recurrence following surgery (the adjuvant setting), and to prolong life and improve symptoms in those with metastatic disease (the palliative setting). Chemotherapy is associated with side-effects which include hair loss, lethargy, nausea, mucositis, diarrhoea, organ damage and risks of severe infection. It is difficult to predict which patients are likely to get side-effects, and the presence of co-morbidities and fitness plays a significant role in how cancer patients tolerate treatment. This therefore has an impact in the physicians’ choice/decision of chemotherapy usage and regimen for an individual patient. However there is no-one agreed gold standard method of using and measuring co-morbidity and fitness, and how this influences treatment. A recent survey of the NCIN site-specific clinical reference groups suggested that co-morbidities influenced decisions regarding chemotherapy across all tumour sites, and predicting chemotherapy toxicity has been highlighted as an area of critical importance by the National Chemotherapy Advisory Group report in 2009.

Reports from earlier in 2013

You can also see and download reports which we published before January 2013 on our reports archive page.