Help us to stop bowel cancer

Bowel cancer


The cells in your body normally divide and grow in a controlled way. When cancer develops, the cells change and can grow in an uncontrolled way.

Most bowel cancers develop from pre-cancerous growths, called polyps. But not all polyps develop into cancer. If your doctor finds any polyps, he or she can remove them to prevent them becoming cancerous.

Cancer cells may stay in the bowel or they might spread to other parts of the body, like the liver or lungs. 

Facts and figures about bowel cancer 

These statistics can only give you a general idea of how bowel cancer affects the UK population. They cannot tell you what will happen to you, as this depends on lots of things, like what treatment you have. Your GP or healthcare team can tell you more about your individual situation and how these statistics may affect you.

How common is bowel cancer?


Over 41,000 people are diagnosed with bowel cancer every year in the UK.

More than nine out of ten new cases (94%) are diagnosed in people over the age of 50, and nearly six out of ten cases (58%) are diagnosed in people aged 70 or over. But bowel cancer can affect any age. More than 2,400 new cases are diagnosed each year in people under the age of 50.


How many people are living with bowel cancer?

Around 290,000 people living in the UK today have been diagnosed with bowel cancer.

How many people survive bowel cancer?





More information
Cancer Research UK provides statistics and information on the outlook for bowel cancer.

The statistic for the number of people living with bowel cancer in the UK comes from Macmillan Cancer Support. All other statistics in this page come from Cancer Research UK

Updated March 2016. Due for review March 2017