Cancer diagnosis on the rise, Cancer Research warns

Cancer Research UK has warned that the number of people being diagnosed with cancer each year has risen by 12 per cent, since the mid 1990s.

The charity accounted that for every 100,000 Britons, 603 were diagnosed with some form of cancer in 2011-13. This compared to 540 in 1992-95.

However, experts have also maintained that the rise is mainly due to an ageing and growing population, while the chances of surviving cancer have increased. Nonetheless, the charity has added that despite some improvements with regard to treatment and earlier diagnosis, come cancers still impose low survival rates.

In particular, the charity highlights that more needs to be done to tackle survival rates for lung, pancreatic and oesophageal cancer, which tend to be spotted later compared to other cancers.

Nick Ormiston-Smith, Cancer Research UK's head of statistical information, said: "People are living longer so more people are getting cancer. But the good news is more people are surviving their cancer.

"There is still a huge variation in survival between different cancer types and there's a lot of work to do to reach Cancer Research UK's ambition for three in four patients to survive their disease by 2034."