5.5% of US Population Are Cancer Survivors, and the Number Is Growing

There are currently 18.6 million cancer survivors living in the US, according to the American Cancer Society, and this number is expected to climb past 22 million in the next decade.1 With a total population over 341 million, this means about 5.5% of the country is living with a history of cancer.2

The number of cancer survivors by state was largely reflective of population size. | Image credit: Andreas Prott – stock.adobe.com

These findings were published in the American Cancer Society journal CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, and are based on data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) cancer registries, the CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries and National Center for Health Statistics, the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries, the National Cancer Database, and the US Census Bureau.1 The data show that about half of the country’s cancer survivors received their diagnosis within the past 10 years, and nearly 4 in 5 survivors are 60 years and older.

Breast cancer affects more women than any other type, with more than 4.3 million women having a history of diagnosis as of January 2025, according to the report. This number is expected to reach 5.3 million by January 2035, increasing by 1 million women in the next 10 years and marking the largest estimated growth among the top 10 most prevalent cancers. At the start of 2025, researchers estimated nearly 170,000 breast cancer survivors were living with metastatic disease, and by the end of the year, they expect more than 316,000 women to receive a diagnosis for invasive breast cancer. Women were also largely impacted by uterine (n = 945,540) and thyroid cancer (n = 859,890).

Prostate cancer was the most prevalent type among male survivors, affecting more than 3.5 million men in the US, followed by melanoma (n = 816,580) and colorectal cancer (n = 729,550). In the next decade, these numbers are projected to reach 4.2 million, 1 million, and 869,560, respectively.

The number of cancer survivors varies by state. This was largely reflective of population size, with the more populated states of California, Texas, Florida, and New York having more than a million cancer survivors living in each state. Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan followed with more than half a million survivors, while smaller states like Vermont, Wyoming, Alaska, North Dakota, and Washington, DC, each had less than 50,000 survivors.

The report also shed light on differences in care delivery. Among women with early-stage breast cancer, breast-conserving surgery with radiation is most common, but nearly one-third still undergo mastectomy. Additionally, while endocrine therapy is widely used for hormone receptor–positive disease, its use and adherence are significantly lower among Black women than White women, especially in stage III (65% vs 74%), highlighting a persistent treatment gap.

“Lower initiation and adherence rates largely drive the underuse of endocrine therapy in Black women,” the researchers noted. “For example, Black women were less likely to report full adherence to endocrine therapy 2 years after diagnosis (75% vs. 83% for White women; P < .001) and experienced more treatment-related side effects.”

These gaps don’t just apply to breast cancer. Among patients diagnosed with stage 1 colorectal cancer, those without insurance had worse 5-year survival than patients with private insurance with more advanced stage 2 disease.3 Similarly, in 2021, only 47% of Black patients with stage 1 or 2 lung cancer underwent surgery compared with 52% of White patients. The treatment gap was even wider in rectal cancer, with 64% of White patients with stage I disease undergoing surgery compared with only 39% of Black patients.

“Efforts to expand access to high‐quality care regardless of your skin color or bank balance are vital to reducing disparities and advancing equity for everyone affected by cancer, which is ultimately all of us,” Rebecca Siegel, MPH, senior scientific director of cancer surveillance research at the American Cancer Society and author on the study, said in a news release. “We need to do more to level the playing field and end barriers to quality care both during and after treatment.”

References

1. Sandeep Wagle N, Nogueira L, Devasia TP, et al. Cancer treatment and survivorship statistics, 2025. CA Cancer J Clin. Published online May 30, 2025. Accessed May 30, 2025. doi:10.3322/caac.70011
2. Rodriguez DM. U.S. population projected to reach 341,145,670 at midnight EST on January 1. United States Census Bureau. December 30, 2024. Accessed May 30, 2025. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/12/new-year-population.html
3. New ACS study: number of cancer survivors in the U.S. reaches 18.6 million — projected to exceed 22 million by 2035. American Cancer Society. News release. May 30, 2025. Accessed May 30, 2025. https://pressroom.cancer.org/Cancer-Survivors-Increase