Prostate cancer data update: numbers and sources

  August 31, 2026    

Data from the NHS in England shows that 50,751 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer in England in 2022, compared to 48,531 breast cancer diagnoses in the same year. The following year (2023), 55,033 men got a prostate cancer diagnosis, while there were 47,526 breast cancer cases. The UK’s leading men’s health charity also reveals today that prostate cancer cases shot up by a quarter (25%) between 2019 and 2023. Prostate cancer was impacted by the pandemic more than any other cancer. Because people were less likely to visit their GP at the height of the pandemic, more than 14,000 men who should have been diagnosed and referred for treatment were missing from the health system.
The rise of prostate cancer (Urological) in the UK from April 2020 to October 2024 

As I have said elsewhere, I am reading and writing a lot about prostate cancer these days, not just because it is something that numerous friends and I are dealing with in our own lives, but also because it is a large, growing, ageing-population-driven cancer burden. In my opinion, not enough people are aware of this, so I want to leverage my own experience to raise awareness. This post focuses on the numbers, the scale. Separate posts will address the scope, what having prostate cancer means to them what has it.

The scale of prostate cancer is now comparable to that of breast cancer as a public health issue, and in some key numerical measures it has overtaken it: UK deaths, recent UK diagnoses, and projected US new cases. I'm not pointing this out to diminish breast cancer, but to show that prostate cancer has become a similarly major national cancer problem and deserves the same seriousness in public awareness, early detection policy, treatment capacity, and survivorship support.

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