- Bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK. Each year more than 42,000 people are diagnosed with bowel cancer – more than 120 people every day in the UK.
- Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death after lung cancer in the UK.
- Bowel cancer is one of the most curable cancers if detected early. When diagnosed at its earliest stage, more than 9 in 10 (92%) people with bowel cancer will survive their disease for five years or more.
- Five-year survival rates for bowel cancer have doubled over the last 40 years, thanks to greater awareness, earlier detection, and improving treatment.
- However too many people still die from bowel cancer with about 16,000 bowel cancer deaths in the UK every year – around 46 every day.
- Patients diagnosed with early disease are nearly twice as likely to survive – and therefore we have to encourage more screening and treatment for early disease.
Information and statistics from Cancer Research UK.