Lifetime Risk of Developing or Dying From Cancer

The lifetime risk of developing or dying from cancer refers to the chance a person has, over the course of their lifetime (from birth to death), of being diagnosed with or dying from cancer. These risk estimates are one way to measure how widespread cancer is in the United States.

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Males
Females

The following tables list lifetime risks of developing and dying from certain cancers for men and women in the United States. The information is from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database, and is based on incidence data from 2017 through 2019 and mortality data from 2018 through 2020 in the US, the most recent years for which data are available.

The risk is expressed both in terms of a percentage and as odds.

For example, the risk that a man will develop cancer of the pancreas during his lifetime is 1.7%. This means he has about 1 chance in 58 of developing pancreatic cancer (100/1.7 = 58).
Put another way, 1 out of every 58 men in the United States will develop pancreatic cancer during his lifetime.

These numbers are average risks for the overall US population. Your risk may be higher or lower than these numbers, depending on your particular risk factors for each type of cancer.

Males

	Risk of developing		Risk of dying from
	%	1 in	%	1 in
Any cancer	41.6	2	19	5
Bladder (includes in situ)	3.6	28	0.8	119
Brain and nervous system	0.7	145	0.5	192
Breast	0.1	726	<0.1	3,476
Colon and rectum	4.3	23	1.6	61
Esophagus	0.8	127	0.7	144
Hodgkin lymphoma	0.2	431	<0.1	2,956
Kidney and renal pelvis	2.3	43	0.5	183
Larynx (voice box)	0.5	197	0.2	594
Leukemia	1.9	53	0.9	115
Liver and bile duct	1.5	65	1.0	100
Lung and bronchus	6.3	16	4.4	23
Melanoma of the skin*	3.6	28	0.4	248
Multiple myeloma	1.0	103	0.4	232
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma	2.4	42	0.7	136
Oral cavity and pharynx (mouth and throat)	1.7	59	0.4	248
Pancreas	1.7	58	1.4	74
Prostate	12.9	8	2.3	44
Stomach	1.0	101	0.4	260
Testicles	0.4	244	<0.1	4,889
Thyroid	0.7	153	0.1	1,780

Females

	Risk of developing			Risk of dying from
	%	1 in	%		1 in
Any cancer	39.6	3	17		6
Bladder (includes in situ)	1.1	89	0.3		311
Brain and nervous system	0.5	186	0.4		243
Breast	13	8	2.5		41
Cervix	0.7	152	0.2		473
Colon and rectum	3.9	25	1.5		67
Esophagus	0.2	434	0.2		536
Hodgkin lymphoma	0.2	527	<0.1		4,071
Kidney and renal pelvis	1.4	73	0.3		330
Larynx (voice box)	0.1	844	<0.1		2,416
Leukemia	1.3	75	0.6		159
Liver and bile duct	0.7	143	0.5		182
Lung and bronchus	5.9	17	3.8		26
Melanoma of the skin*	2.5	41	0.2		473
Multiple myeloma	0.8	131	0.4		284
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma	1.9	52	0.6		176
Oral cavity and pharynx (mouth and throat)	0.7	139	0.2		541
Ovary	1.1	87	0.8		130
Pancreas	1.7	60	1.3		74
Stomach	0.6	155	0.3		371
Thyroid	1.7	58	0.1		1,467
Uterus	3.1	32	0.7		153

*The risk numbers for melanoma are for non-Hispanic White individuals. The risk among people of other races/ethnicities is likely to be lower.

Written by
References

The American Cancer Society medical and editorial content team

Our team is made up of doctors and oncology certified nurses with deep knowledge of cancer care as well as editors and translators with extensive experience in medical writing.

American Cancer Society. Lifetime Probability of Developing (2017-2019) or Dying (2018-2020) from Cancer (Cancer Facts & Figures 2024 Supplemental Data). 2024. Accessed at /content/dam/cancer-org/research/cancer-facts-and-statistics/annual-cancer-facts-and-figures/2024/sd4-lifetime-probability-2024.pdf on January 18, 2024.

Last Revised: January 18, 2024

American Cancer Society medical information is copyrighted material. For reprint requests, please see our Content Usage Policy.

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