How Many People Die From Bowel Cancer Every Day
Bowel cancer kills around 2,500 people a day worldwide, yet it is one of the most curable cancers when found early. The numbers, the risks and screening.
Picture a man in his late fifties sitting at a kitchen table with a small brown envelope in front of him. Inside is a bowel cancer screening kit: a plastic tube, a stick and a sheet of instructions. It arrived three weeks ago. He moved it from the hallway to the kitchen, then to the drawer by the fridge, then back to the table. It is a bit awkward, a bit embarrassing, and he feels perfectly well. There is always something more pressing to do.
Multiply that hesitation by millions of kitchen tables and you have one of the quiet tragedies of modern medicine. Bowel cancer is among the most preventable and most treatable cancers there is. Caught early, more than nine in ten people survive it. Caught late, most do not. And the difference between the two is very often a test that sat unopened in a drawer.
The headline number
Bowel cancer, also called colorectal cancer, killed around 904,000 people worldwide in the most recent full global estimate from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), published in its GLOBOCAN 2022 data. That makes it the second deadliest cancer on earth, behind only lung cancer.
That works out to roughly 2,480 deaths every day, or close to two every minute. You can watch total global deaths rising in real time on our live death counter, where cancer of all types accounts for around one in every six deaths.
| Time period | Bowel cancer deaths (approx.) |
|---|---|
| Per minute | 1.7 |
| Per hour | 103 |
| Per day | 2,480 |
| Per week | 17,400 |
| Per month | 75,300 |
| Per year | 904,000 |
The same IARC data counted about 1.93 million new cases in a single year. Bowel cancer is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world, and it is becoming more common as populations age and as diets and lifestyles in middle-income countries shift towards those of Western Europe and North America.
How bowel cancer compares with other cancers
Cancer as a whole kills around 10 million people a year, which we break down in how many people die from cancer every day. Bowel cancer sits near the very top of that list.
| Cancer type | Approx. deaths per year (GLOBOCAN 2022) | Approx. deaths per day |
|---|---|---|
| Lung | 1,820,000 | 4,990 |
| Bowel (colorectal) | 904,000 | 2,480 |
| Liver | 758,000 | 2,080 |
| Breast | 666,000 | 1,820 |
| Stomach | 660,000 | 1,810 |
| Prostate | 397,000 | 1,090 |
Unlike lung cancer, which is dominated by a single cause (smoking), bowel cancer has a whole cluster of risk factors, most of them tied to diet, weight and activity. That makes it harder to blame on any one thing, but it also means there are several different ways to lower your risk. We cover the two biggest cancers in detail in how many people die from lung cancer every day and how many people die from breast cancer every day.
Where bowel cancer is most common
Bowel cancer has long been called a disease of wealthy countries. Incidence rates are highest in Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea, and lowest across much of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
But the picture is changing fast. As countries grow richer, diets change: more red and processed meat, more refined food, less fibre, more alcohol, more sitting down. Rates of bowel cancer climb within a generation. China now records more bowel cancer deaths than any other country, simply because of the size of its ageing population.
| Region or country | Bowel cancer pattern |
|---|---|
| Europe | Among the highest incidence rates in the world, with strong screening programmes in many countries |
| United Kingdom | Around 44,000 new cases and roughly 16,800 deaths a year (Cancer Research UK) |
| United States | Around 154,000 new cases and about 53,000 deaths expected in 2025 (American Cancer Society) |
| China | Largest number of deaths of any country, rising as the population ages |
| Japan | High incidence, but strong survival thanks to early detection |
| Africa | Lower recorded rates, but many cases are diagnosed late, so survival is poor |
In the UK, bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer and the second biggest cancer killer, after lung cancer. That is around 46 deaths every day in Britain alone. In the US, it is the second leading cause of cancer death when men and women are counted together.
The worrying rise in younger adults
For decades, bowel cancer was thought of as a disease of older people, and it still mostly is. Around nine in ten cases are diagnosed in people over 50. But something unusual has been happening.
Since the 1990s, rates of bowel cancer in people under 50 have been rising in many high-income countries, including the UK, the US, Australia and much of Europe. Research published in The Lancet Oncology in 2024 found early-onset bowel cancer rising in 27 of the 50 countries studied. In the US, the American Cancer Society now reports bowel cancer as the leading cause of cancer death in men under 50 and the second leading cause in women under 50.
| Age group | What the trend looks like |
|---|---|
| Under 50 | Rising in many high-income countries since the 1990s |
| 50 to 74 | Falling or flat where screening is well established |
| 75 and over | Highest absolute risk; rates broadly stable |
Nobody yet knows exactly why. Researchers are looking at obesity in childhood, ultra-processed diets, antibiotics, changes in gut bacteria and sedentary lifestyles. Whatever the cause, younger patients are more often diagnosed late, partly because doctors and patients alike do not suspect cancer in a 35-year-old. This is why the US lowered its recommended screening age from 50 to 45 in 2021, and why England has lowered its starting age for routine screening to 50.
The rise is real, but keep it in proportion: the absolute risk for someone in their 30s remains low. The 30 to 49 age group still loses far more people to accidents, suicide and heart disease than to bowel cancer.
What raises your risk
Bowel cancer is one of the cancers most closely linked to the way we eat and live. Cancer Research UK estimates that more than half of bowel cancer cases in the UK are preventable.
| Risk factor | What the evidence says |
|---|---|
| Processed meat | Classified by IARC as a Group 1 carcinogen; each 50g a day linked to around an 18% higher risk |
| Red meat | Classified by IARC as "probably carcinogenic" (Group 2A) |
| Low fibre intake | Diets low in wholegrains, fruit and vegetables linked to higher risk |
| Obesity | Raises risk, especially in men |
| Alcohol | Risk rises with the amount drunk |
| Smoking | Raises both risk and the chance of dying from it |
| Physical inactivity | Regular exercise is linked to lower risk |
| Family history | A close relative with bowel cancer roughly doubles risk |
| Inflammatory bowel disease | Long-standing ulcerative colitis or Crohn's raises risk |
| Inherited syndromes | Lynch syndrome and familial adenomatous polyposis carry very high risk |
You will notice how much of this list overlaps with the risk factors for heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. That is not a coincidence. The same habits that protect the heart also protect the bowel, which is one of the main messages of the habits that add the most years to your life. Processed food is a recurring theme too, which we look at in ultra-processed food and death, and excess weight ties into five of the top ten killers, as we explain in how obesity contributes to 5 of the top 10 causes of death.
Why stage at diagnosis changes everything
Bowel cancer usually begins as a polyp, a small growth on the lining of the bowel. Most polyps are harmless. A few, over a period of roughly 10 years, slowly turn cancerous. That long, slow runway is what makes bowel cancer so beatable: there is plenty of time to find and remove a polyp before it ever becomes dangerous.
Once cancer has formed, the stage at which it is found is the single biggest factor in whether someone survives.
| Stage at diagnosis (UK, approx.) | Chance of surviving 5 years or more |
|---|---|
| Stage 1 (confined to the bowel wall) | More than 9 in 10 |
| Stage 2 (through the bowel wall) | Around 8 in 10 |
| Stage 3 (spread to nearby lymph nodes) | Around 6 to 7 in 10 |
| Stage 4 (spread to other organs) | Around 1 in 10 |
Those figures, based on Cancer Research UK and NHS data, tell the whole story. The difference between finding bowel cancer early and finding it late is the difference between near-certain survival and likely death. Yet in the UK, a large share of bowel cancers are still diagnosed at stage 3 or 4, and too many are found only after an emergency admission.
Screening: the test in the drawer
This is where that envelope on the kitchen table comes back in.
The NHS bowel cancer screening programme posts a home test kit, called a FIT (faecal immunochemical test), to everyone in the eligible age range every two years. It detects tiny amounts of blood in a stool sample, invisible to the eye. If blood is found, the next step is usually a colonoscopy, which can find and remove polyps on the spot.
| Country | Routine screening offered |
|---|---|
| England | Home FIT kit every 2 years, ages 50 to 74 |
| Scotland | Home FIT kit every 2 years, ages 50 to 74 |
| Wales and Northern Ireland | Home FIT kit, starting age being lowered towards 50 |
| United States | From age 45, by stool test or colonoscopy |
| Australia | Free home test every 2 years, ages 45 to 74 |
Screening works. Large trials have shown that stool-based screening reduces deaths from bowel cancer, and colonoscopy that removes polyps can prevent cancers from forming at all. But it only works if people do the test. In England, uptake has improved since the simpler FIT test replaced the older kit, yet roughly a third of people who are sent one still do not return it. Uptake is lowest in deprived areas, among men, and in some ethnic minority communities, which is exactly where death rates are highest. It is another example of how income affects life expectancy.
Symptoms worth acting on
Screening is for people with no symptoms. If you do have symptoms, do not wait for the next kit to arrive. The NHS lists these as reasons to see a GP:
- Bleeding from your bottom or blood in your poo
- A persistent change in your bowel habit, such as looser stools or going more often
- Unexplained weight loss
- Extreme tiredness for no obvious reason
- A pain or lump in your tummy
Most people with these symptoms do not have cancer. Haemorrhoids, infections and irritable bowel syndrome are far more common causes. But the only way to know is to get checked, and a quick test now is a very small price compared with a stage 4 diagnosis later.
Is bowel cancer getting deadlier?
Overall, the picture in rich countries is cautiously positive. Death rates from bowel cancer have fallen in the UK and the US over the past few decades, thanks to screening, better surgery, better chemotherapy and specialist care. In the UK, bowel cancer death rates have fallen by around a third since the early 1970s, according to Cancer Research UK.
The global picture is different. As populations age and lifestyles change in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, the total number of deaths is expected to keep rising. IARC projects that new bowel cancer cases worldwide could reach around 3.2 million a year by 2040. You can see how cancer compares with other rising and falling causes of death on our trending page, or explore the full cancer data on the cancer causes page.
While you were reading this
You have spent about 12 minutes with this article. In that time, roughly 30 people around the world have died of bowel cancer. Several of them had a polyp that sat quietly in their bowel for years, slowly changing, at a stage when a routine test and a short procedure could have removed it completely.
You can see how those deaths fit into the full picture on our live death counter and the deaths today page. If you want a personal estimate of how your own habits affect your life expectancy, try the risk calculator or the Death Clock.
And if there is a brown envelope sitting in a drawer in your house, or a parent's house, this might be a good day to open it.
Data sources: International Agency for Research on Cancer (GLOBOCAN 2022, Global Cancer Observatory), Cancer Research UK, NHS England bowel cancer screening programme, American Cancer Society (Cancer Facts and Figures 2025), IARC Monographs on red and processed meat, Sung et al. (The Lancet Oncology, 2024). Figures are rounded and represent the most recent available estimates; daily and hourly figures are derived from annual totals. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. If you have symptoms, please speak to your GP.
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