Cancer Prevalence: How Many People Have Cancer?
Sep 02
Cancer prevalence is defined as the total number of people living with cancer at any point in time. It includes both people diagnosed with cancer in the past (who are still alive) as well as people recently diagnosed.
Cancer prevalence is not a measure of how common a cancer is. This number is reflected by cancer incidence, which is the number of people newly diagnosed with cancer in a given time period (usually one year). Prevalence is affected both by the incidence of a cancer and by how long people normally live with the disease.
For example, lung cancer is the second most common cancer in both men and women, but lung cancer prevalence is not as high as that of some less common cancers because people with lung cancer tend not to live as long once diagnosed.
The following numbers come from the US National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database for the year 2002, the most recent year for which reliable estimates are available. These are estimates based on a sampling of the US population. Numbers may not add up due to rounding to the nearest 1,000.
| Estimated United States Cancer Prevalence, 2002 |
| Total | Males | Females | |
| All Sites |
10,146,000 |
4,504,000 |
5,642,000 |
| Brain & Other Nervous System |
106,000 |
57,000 |
49,000 |
| Breast |
2,290,000 |
12,000 |
2,278,000 |
| Cervix |
223,000 |
0 |
223,000 |
| Colon & Rectum |
1,052,000 |
505,000 |
546,000 |
| Endometrial Cancerand Uterine Sarcoma |
572,000 |
0 |
572,000 |
| Esophagus |
23,000 |
18,000 |
6,000 |
| Hodgkin Disease |
146,000 |
76,000 |
69,000 |
| Kidney & Renal Pelvis |
221,000 |
131,000 |
91,000 |
| Larynx |
98,000 |
78,000 |
20,000 |
| Leukemias |
189,000 |
106,000 |
83,000 |
| Liver & Bile Duct |
16,000 |
9,000 |
6,000 |
| Lung & Bronchus |
351,000 |
174,000 |
176,000 |
| Melanoma of Skin |
630,000 |
304,000 |
326,000 |
| Multiple Myeloma |
50,000 |
27,000 |
23,000 |
| Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma |
347,000 |
180,000 |
167,000 |
| Oral Cavity & Pharynx |
232,000 |
147,000 |
85,000 |
| Ovary |
170,000 |
0 |
170,000 |
| Pancreas |
26,000 |
12,000 |
14,000 |
| Prostate |
1,832,000 |
1,832,000 |
0 |
| Stomach |
59,000 |
34,000 |
25,000 |
| Testis |
164,000 |
164,000 |
0 |
| Thyroid |
327,000 |
75,000 |
252,000 |
| Urinary Bladder |
499,000 |
368,000 |
132,000 |
| Childhood Cancer (0-19 years) |
216,000 |
110,000 |
105,000 |
References
National Cancer Institute. SEER Cancer Statistics Review, 1975-2002. 2006.
Available at: http://seer.cancer.gov/csr/1975_2002/
Accessed January 31, 2006.
Revised: 02/22/2006
