It’s a question that keeps many up at night: Could that new lump, a long-lasting cough, or that sudden change in bathroom habits be a sign of cancer?
Cancer is a disease that will statistically affect about half of us in our lifetime.
But what exactly is the risk for men and women per type of cancer? And what are the chances of surviving in the next ten years after a diagnosis?
MailOnline has analyzed data from the charity Cancer Research UK to show you what the most common forms of the disease are in Britain, as well as the deadliest.
Interest in cancer is high, with cancer charities and the NHS reporting a rise in visits to their online resources The Princess of Wales revealing her own cancer conflict.
This graph shows British women’s lifetime risk of being diagnosed for a range of cancers. It also shows the risk of dying within ten years of learning they have the disease
And this graph shows the equivalent data for British men
Overall, British women have a 43 percent chance of developing cancer in their lifetime.
If they develop the disease, there is a 46.3 percent chance that they will be dead within ten years of their diagnosis.
Men have a slightly higher risk of developing cancer: 45 percent.
They also have a higher risk of death: 54.2 percent of male cancer patients die ten years after their diagnosis.
By cancer type, gender-specific cancers were among the most common.
About one in six men (16.7 percent) will develop prostate cancer during their lifetime, while a similar percentage of women (14.3 percent) will develop breast cancer.
Despite their increased prevalence, patients with these cancers are more likely to develop cancer in the next decade than other forms of the disease.
The minority of men, approximately one in six (16.2 percent), with prostate cancer will die within ten years of their diagnosis.
In breast cancer patients, the number of deaths in ten years is just under one in four (24.1 percent).
Lung cancer is the next most common cancer in both sexes, affecting 7.1 percent of men and 7.7 percent of women, respectively.
It is also one of the deadliest. In male patients, 96 percent die within ten years of diagnosis, and in women this is 93.5 percent.
Bowel cancer, the same type of disease that killed Dame Deborah James in 2022 at the age of 40, is the third most common form of cancer, according to the data.
It affects about one in twenty men (5.9 percent) and women (5 percent).
Of the men who develop the disease, 44 percent die within ten years, and for women the figure is 42.8 percent.
Pancreatic cancer, famous for subtle symptoms that often mean the disease is detected at later and less treatable stages, is the deadliest cancer among the CRUK data analyzed.
The vast majority of men and women with this type of cancer (98.9 percent) die within ten years of diagnosis.
Lung cancer is the next most deadly cancer, followed by cancers of the esophagus, the tube that connects the mouth and stomach, and cancers of the brain and nervous system.
More than 85 percent of patients with these cancers will die within ten years of diagnosis.
According to data from CRUK, an average of just over 375,000 new cases of cancer are discovered in the UK every year.
Of these, almost two in five (38 percent) cases are preventable because they are caused by long-term factors such as smoking or obesity.
Cancer survival rates, while useful in showing different health outcomes for different types of the disease, are an aggregate figure and do not reflect the specific details of each case.
For example, the data does not distinguish cancer survival based on the stage at which the disease was noticed.
Patients whose cancer is detected earlier generally have a greater chance that treatment will be more effective than patients whose disease is only discovered at a later and possibly final stage.
The data also does not take into account differences between patients.
Younger patients, who generally have fewer long-term health problems than older people, may experience fewer or less serious health complications due to their illness or treatment, which can affect survival rates.
There are more than 200 different types of cancer and symptoms vary by type.
However, the NHS advises that some of the most common symptoms include a new lump that appears suddenly, unexplained bleeding and changes in bowel habits.
Others include a cough or bloating that lasts three weeks or more, changes in moles, unexplained weight loss, or jaundice in which the skin and eyes turn a yellow tinge.
This list is not universal and the health service is urging anyone with a change in their body that concerns them to contact their GP.
In many cases, such a symptom or symptoms will not be caused by cancer.
However, the NHS says it is important to have these checked to be sure, as well as to address other possible health issues that could be causing the problem.