How Many Cancer Survivors Are There in the U.S.?

How many cancer survivors are there in the United States? NCI's Office of Cancer Survivorship estimates 18.6 million as of May 2025. That is roughly 5.4 percent of the population, about 1 in every 18 or 19 people. And the number is growing: NCI projects 22.4 million survivors by 2035 and 26.0 million by 2040.

Behind that count sits a definition worth understanding, and a shift in what cancer care has to be.

NCI counts a person as a cancer survivor from the time of diagnosis through the balance of life. There is no waiting period and no requirement to be cancer-free.

That means the 18.6 million includes people in treatment right now, people living long-term with cancer that cannot be cured, and people whose treatment ended decades ago. NCI counted 623,405 people living with metastatic cancer of six major types, a number it estimated would grow past 693,400 by 2025.

NCI also acknowledges that the label is personal. There are many types of survivors, including those living with cancer and those free of it, and how a person relates to the word can change over time. Some people embrace it at diagnosis. Others never use it. The statistic includes everyone; the identity is up to each person.

A few figures from NCI's May 2025 estimates sketch the population:

• Time since diagnosis. 70 percent of survivors have lived 5 or more years since their diagnosis. 49 percent have lived 10 or more years. 22 percent have lived 20 or more years.
• Age. 79 percent of survivors are 60 or older. Surviving cancer and aging with it now go together for most of this group.
• Cancer types. Female breast cancer accounts for the largest share, 23 percent, or about 4.3 million people. Prostate cancer follows at 19 percent, about 3.6 million. Melanoma accounts for 9 percent and colorectal cancer for 8 percent.

The projection tells its own story: 22.4 million by 2035 is an increase of 3.8 million over the May 2025 count. By 2040, NCI expects 19.2 million people to have lived 5 or more years past diagnosis, about a 53 percent increase over the 2022 figure.

Growth in the survivor count reflects people living longer after diagnosis and a large population entering the ages when cancer is most often found. A count that grows is, in this sense, good news. It measures people who are still here.

The definition matters to the math, too. Because a person is counted from diagnosis onward, the total includes people newly diagnosed this year alongside people diagnosed in the 1980s. Each year adds new members, and better outcomes mean fewer people leave the count early. The result is a population that compounds.

Cancer care used to be organized around treatment. With nearly 19 million people past diagnosis, what happens after treatment matters just as much.

NCI describes the terrain survivors navigate: adjusting to physical and emotional changes after treatment, coping with fear of recurrence, and watching for late effects, which may not show up for months or years after treatment ends. Family relationships can need attention too, and survivors of childhood cancer have their own long-term needs.

Two tools organize this phase:

• Follow-up care. Seeing a health care provider for regular medical checkups once treatment ends. NCI notes these visits may include bloodwork and other tests, and they are a time to check for physical and emotional problems that can appear months or years later.
• A survivorship care plan. A written record that includes your diagnosis date, cancer type, and treatment details, such as surgeries, radiation sites and doses, and chemotherapy names and doses, along with signs and symptoms to watch for and possible long-term effects. NCI adds that a plan may also address emotional, social, or financial needs. Our page on what a survivorship care plan is explains how to ask for one.

If you are one of the 18.6 million, the practical step is simple: make sure someone owns your follow-up. NCI suggests asking which doctors you should see and how often, what tests you need, what long-term issues to expect, and what you can do to stay as healthy as possible.

Nearly 4 in 5 survivors are 60 or older, so survivorship care increasingly overlaps with the ordinary work of aging: heart health, bone health, other conditions, and multiple medicines. That is one more reason a written plan, shared between your cancer team and your primary care provider, earns its keep.

The number will keep climbing. The care that follows it is still catching up, and knowing what to ask for is how each survivor closes that gap for themselves.

• Statistics and Graphs — NCI Office of Cancer Survivorship
• Cancer Survivorship — National Cancer Institute
• Follow-Up Medical Care — National Cancer Institute