Cancer in Germany

• 2021Women 245,000; men 276,900521,900
• 2022Women 244,500; men 279,100523,600
• 2023Women 241,400; men 276,400517,800

The report prints women and men apart. The totals for 2021 and 2022 are Dooram's sums; the report prints the 2023 total itself.

With common skin cancer the estimate for 2023 is 760,620: common skin cancer alone is 242,820. Those two are Dooram's sums of the figures printed for women and men. Common skin cancer is very often found and rarely kills, so the centre gives its totals without it, and this page does the same.

Source: Zentrum für Krebsregisterdaten at the Robert Koch-Institut, with Deutsche Krebsregister e. V., Krebs in Deutschland für 2021 – 2023 (Cancer in Germany), 2025, Tables 3.0.1 and 3.1.1, pages 17 and 20 of the file.

Germany does not count every new cancer in one place. The centre works the figure out from the cancer records of the 16 states; for 2023, 12 states' records serve as its yardstick.

Of the newest year, the centre says:

„Vor allem die Zahlen für das letzte Inzidenzjahr (2023) sind daher noch als vorläufig anzusehen, wir rechnen hier noch mit einem nachträglichen Anstieg im einstelligen Prozentbereich.“

In English, Dooram's translation: “Above all the figures for the last year (2023) are therefore still to be seen as provisional; we expect a later rise of a few per cent.”

Two more estimates from the same report: about 1.7 million people are living with a cancer found in the last five years, and 49 in 100 men and 43 in 100 women get cancer at some time in their lives.

Sources: Zentrum für Krebsregisterdaten at the Robert Koch-Institut, with Deutsche Krebsregister e. V., Krebs in Deutschland für 2021 – 2023 (Cancer in Germany), 2025, pages 11, 17 and 20 of the file. Zentrum für Krebsregisterdaten, Robert Koch-Institut, Datenbankabfrage (its query page), read 11 October 2026.

The five commonest cancers in each sex in 2023, by the cancer data centre's estimate. Common skin cancer is left out. Bowel is the colon and rectum together.

Breast cancer was also found in 770 men.

Prostate cancer has risen in the estimate three years running: 73,540 in 2021, 78,000 in 2022, 79,610 in 2023. No source Dooram read says why, so Dooram does not say why either.

Source: Zentrum für Krebsregisterdaten at the Robert Koch-Institut, with Deutsche Krebsregister e. V., Krebs in Deutschland für 2021 – 2023 (Cancer in Germany), 2025, pages 17 and 94 of the file.

The middle age: half of the people were younger than this when their cancer was found, and half were older.

Some cancers come much earlier in life. Two are drawn here.

Source: Zentrum für Krebsregisterdaten at the Robert Koch-Institut, with Deutsche Krebsregister e. V., Krebs in Deutschland für 2021 – 2023 (Cancer in Germany), 2025, pages 20, 82 and 98 of the file.

Each bar is the chance that a woman or a man of that age is found to have that cancer in the next ten years, as the cancer data centre worked it out from the figures for 2019. The five likeliest of the 27 cancers it gives these chances for are drawn, likeliest first. The centre rounds them, so two can be printed the same: for women of 45, bowel cancer and melanoma are both 1 in 290.

„Erkrankungs- und Sterberisiko in Deutschland nach Alter und Geschlecht“

In English, Dooram's translation: “The risk of getting and of dying of cancer in Germany, by age and sex”

The report gives women and men apart and no chance for both together, so none is shown. Common skin cancer is not among the cancers it gives these chances for.

Source: Robert Koch-Institut, with the Gesellschaft der epidemiologischen Krebsregister in Deutschland e. V., Krebs in Deutschland für 2019/2020 (Cancer in Germany for 2019 and 2020), 2023, the second table of each chapter, Datenbasis 2019, pages 28 to 138 of the file.

The 2023 report is the newest to print these chances; the 2025 report draws the ages as charts and prints no figure for them. The centre's database gives counts by age, but only through a form, which Dooram did not submit. So the newest figures of this kind are for 2019.

For women of 65 the picture is left out: the report prints lung cancer's chance at that age as 1.0 in 100 and as 1 in 61, which do not agree. Breast cancer is the likeliest either way, at 1 in 29.

Sources: Robert Koch-Institut, with the Gesellschaft der epidemiologischen Krebsregister in Deutschland e. V., Krebs in Deutschland für 2019/2020 (Cancer in Germany for 2019 and 2020), 2023, Tabelle 3.12.2, page 64 of the file. Zentrum für Krebsregisterdaten, Robert Koch-Institut, Datenbankabfrage (its query page), read 11 October 2026.

Children under 18, girls and boys apart, for the ten years 2014 to 2023 together, from the German Childhood Cancer Registry, as the national cancer report prints them. Each bar is that kind's share of all the cancers found in girls, or in boys.

Not shown by age within childhood: the children's cancer records in Mainz print the kinds by age only in their own short report, which states no terms of reuse, so Dooram does not show them.

Source: Zentrum für Krebsregisterdaten at the Robert Koch-Institut, with Deutsche Krebsregister e. V., Krebs in Deutschland für 2021 – 2023 (Cancer in Germany), 2025, Abbildung 4.1, pages 136 and 137 of the file.

A stage says how far a cancer has grown or spread when it is found. Stage I is the earliest and stage IV the latest.

The shares are of cancers that have a stage on record. About three in ten do not, and they are left out of the shares: that is the third picture. It counts cancers with no stage written down, and cancers known only from a death certificate.

81 in 100 breast cancers in women with a stage on record are found at stage I or II.

For lung and bowel cancer the report draws women and men apart; where the two differ, both figures are given.

Source: Zentrum für Krebsregisterdaten at the Robert Koch-Institut, with Deutsche Krebsregister e. V., Krebs in Deutschland für 2021 – 2023 (Cancer in Germany), 2025, the charts of stage at diagnosis, pages 40, 62 and 76 of the file.

In every 100 cancers found in children and teenagers under 18, 2015 to 2024

• Leukaemias, cancers of the blood30.2
• Brain and nerve tumours25.0
• Lymphomas13.4

These are the three largest groups, of 23,303 cancers found in the ten years.

Of children and teenagers whose cancer was found in 2011 to 2020, 87 in 100 were alive five years later (86.6 as printed). Of those found in 1991 to 2000, it was 79 in 100.

Source: Deutsches Kinderkrebsregister (German Childhood Cancer Registry), Mainz, Short Report 2025 (1980-2024), 2026, pages 3 and 6 of the file.

Germany keeps one record of children's cancer for the whole country, in Mainz. The 2024 figure rests on reports from 59 hospitals.

The bars are a yearly average over ten years, 2,330 children and teenagers a year in all; they are not the year 2024. The report prints no total for children under 15: about 1,920 is Dooram's sum of the first three bars.

Source: Deutsches Kinderkrebsregister (German Childhood Cancer Registry), Mainz, Short Report 2025 (1980-2024), 2026, pages 2, 3 and 6 of the file.

Counted from death certificates. The office prints the total rounded to the hundred. Cancer was the second biggest cause of death in 2025, after diseases of the heart and blood vessels.

The office counts cancer of the colon apart from cancer of the rectum, which caused 7,028 deaths. The cancer data centre's figures, on the cards above, put the two together as bowel cancer.

More deaths is not a worsening on its own: a country with more old people has more. Allowing for age, the cancer data centre says death rates from cancer fell by 21 in 100 for women and 31 in 100 for men over 25 years.

Sources: Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), the Federal Statistical Office, Pressemitteilung Nr. 363 (press release 363), read 11 October 2026. Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), the Federal Statistical Office, Häufigste Todesfälle durch Krebs (the commonest cancer deaths, as at 9 October 2026), read 11 October 2026. Zentrum für Krebsregisterdaten at the Robert Koch-Institut, with Deutsche Krebsregister e. V., Krebs in Deutschland für 2021 – 2023 (Cancer in Germany), 2025, page 20 of the file.

The measure sets people with cancer against people of the same age without it. It describes a large group and is not any one person's chance.

The report prints women and men apart and gives no figure for both together, so the two are never joined into one here.

After ten years: breast cancer 83 in 100 women and 73 in 100 men; lung cancer 18 in 100 women and 13 in 100 men.

Source: Zentrum für Krebsregisterdaten at the Robert Koch-Institut, with Deutsche Krebsregister e. V., Krebs in Deutschland für 2021 – 2023 (Cancer in Germany), 2025, pages 20, 38, 52, 60, 64, 74 and 94 of the file.

The society checks a hospital against its own rules and gives a certificate. On 31 December 2025, 492 hospitals held at least one, 443 of them in Germany.

A certificate is a professional society's mark. It is not a licence from the state, and hospitals without one also treat cancer. Dooram does not tell anyone where to go for care.

Among the states, Bremen has 4 such hospitals and North Rhine-Westphalia 112. 296,775 people were treated for a first cancer at a certified centre in Germany in 2024.

Source: Deutsche Krebsgesellschaft (German Cancer Society, a professional society), Jahresbericht 2026 der zertifizierten Onkologischen Zentren (yearly report on certified cancer centres), pages 19 to 21 of the file.

These are linear accelerators, machines that treat cancer with radiation, as counted in the statistical office's yearly figures on hospitals.

It is a count of hospitals only. It is not every such machine in Germany.

North Rhine-Westphalia has the most of any state: 89 machines in 41 hospitals. For Bremen and Hamburg the office holds the number back. Hospitals also had 15 older machines that use cobalt.

Source: Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), the Federal Statistical Office, Grunddaten der Krankenhäuser 2024 (basic figures on hospitals), tables 23111-28 and 23111-29.

Taking part in one year is not the same as ever having been screened.

In 2023 the breast screening programme invited women aged 50 to 69. Since 1 July 2024 it invites women aged 50 to 75.

The evaluation of bowel screening says of its own figures that take-up is low.

HPV is the human papillomavirus, which causes cancer of the cervix. The figures are for children born in 2009. From district to district, between 26 and 75 in 100 girls aged 15 are vaccinated.

Sources: Kooperationsgemeinschaft Mammographie (the body that runs the breast screening programme), Jahresbericht Evaluation 2023 (evaluation report for 2023), 2025, pages 6, 13 and 44 of the file. Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss (Federal Joint Committee), Evaluationsberichte zur Früherkennung von Darmkrebs und Gebärmutterhalskrebs, 2021 bis 2024 (evaluation reports on bowel and cervical cancer screening, 2021 to 2024), 2026, page 10 of the bowel report, page 11 of the cervical report. Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss (Federal Joint Committee), Abschlussbericht zum Hautkrebsscreening, 2019 bis 2022 (final report on skin cancer screening, 2019 to 2022), 2023, page 9 of the file. Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss (Federal Joint Committee), Lungenkrebs-Screening (its page on lung cancer screening), read 11 October 2026. Robert Koch-Institut, Germany's federal institute for public health, Epidemiologisches Bulletin 50/2025 (the institute's weekly report), pages 5, 7 and 10 of the file, read 11 October 2026.

These are round figures from the association of hospice providers. It is not a government body, and this is not an official count. The care is for anyone near the end of life, not only people with cancer.

The association also gives more than 400 teams that bring specialist care to people's homes, as at 22 March 2024, and names the doctors' association as its source for that.

Dooram looked for an official count in the statistical office's hospital figures for 2024, the health insurers' association's page and the palliative society's directory, and found none.

Source: Deutscher Hospiz- und PalliativVerband (German Hospice and Palliative Association, not a government body), Zahlen, Daten, Fakten (figures and facts), read 11 October 2026.

When a new medicine comes on sale in Germany, the committee that decides what public health insurance pays for looks at whether it helps patients more than the treatment already in use. It publishes each assessment.

This counts assessments, not medicines: one medicine can be assessed more than once, for different uses. The list grows, so the count is for the day it was read.

An assessment does not mean a hospital has the medicine.

Source: Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss (Federal Joint Committee), Nutzenbewertung (its list of benefit assessments), read 11 October 2026.