Common  Cancer Types

This list of common cancer types includes cancers that are diagnosed with the greatest frequency in the United States, excluding nonmelanoma skin cancers:

• Bladder Cancer
• Breast Cancer
• Colon and Rectal Cancer
• Endometrial Cancer
• Kidney Cancer
• Leukemia
• Lung Cancer
• Melanoma
• Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma
• Pancreatic Cancer
• Prostate Cancer
• Thyroid Cancer

Cancer incidence and mortality statistics reported by the American Cancer Society and other resources were used to create the list. To qualify as a common cancer for the list, the estimated annual incidence for 2016 had to be 40,000 cases or more.

The most common type of cancer on the list is breast cancer, with more than 249,000 new cases expected in the United States in 2016. The next most common cancers are lung cancer and prostate cancer. 

Because colon and rectal cancers are often referred to as "colorectal cancers," these two cancer types are combined for the list. For 2016, the estimated number of new cases of colon cancer and rectal cancer are 95,270 and 39,220, respectively, adding to a total of 134,490 new cases of colorectal cancer.