Cancer Registration Statistics, England, 2021 - Full release

The detailed level of cancer groupings using the type of cancer cells as well as their location allows for greater precision and for some cancers to be visible which would not be possible using location alone. The cancers that benefit most from using the type of cancer cell as well as their location are blood cancers, bone sarcoma and soft tissue sarcoma. 

The way blood cancers are grouped by the coding system ICD-10 brings together diagnoses that are now treated differently. These differences can be coded using the type of cancer cells using the ICD-O-3 coding system and more detail can be found in the reported measures section.

Sarcomas are rare cancers that can occur in many parts of the body. Using the ICD-10 coding system, these diagnoses are recorded with other non-sarcoma diagnoses. The treatments suitable for patients diagnosed with sarcomas are often very different to those non-sarcoma diagnoses in the same location. There are 6 bone sarcoma groups and 17 soft tissue sarcoma groups presented for the first time in this publication.

Many common cancers benefit from having more precise groupings, including lung cancer. About 1 in 12 diagnoses are of small cell lung cancer, with the rest being non-small cell lung cancer. The typical outcomes for small cell lung cancer are different to those of non-small cell lung cancer, with patients offered different treatments.  The type of cancer cell is needed to identify small cell lung cancer from non-small cell lung cancer. 

Some common cancers have a single detailed level of cancer grouping. Examples of this include breast and prostate cancer. Instead of grouping by individual cancer cell types, the Gleason score (a measure of how aggressive a diagnosis of prostate cancer) has been included as counts and rates. For breast cancer, a series of counts and rates by hormone receptor statuses is included. 

The main and detailed cancer groups presented in this publication are listed in the reported measures section together with the combinations of Gleason score and hormone receptor statuses presented in this publication. These groupings will be used in future cancer stage and survival publications where enough diagnoses can be combined.