🧬 Ten common cancers
Uterine Cancer
Bleeding after menopause is the sign that matters most. It is also the reason two-thirds of these cancers are caught early.
What it is
The uterus is the womb. NCI describes two types of cancer in it. Endometrial cancer, which starts in the lining, is the common one, and NCI says it can often be cured. Uterine sarcoma, which starts in the muscle or supporting tissue, is rare and NCI describes it as often more aggressive and harder to treat.
Nearly everything below is about endometrial cancer, because that is nearly all uterine cancer.
What to watch for
NCI's list:
- Vaginal bleeding or discharge not related to a period
- Vaginal bleeding after menopause
- Difficult or painful urination
- Pain during sex
- Pelvic pain
The second one is the one to remember. Bleeding after menopause has many causes and most are not cancer. But it is the symptom that brings this cancer to attention early, and it is why two-thirds of cases are found while still confined to the uterus.
For anyone still having periods, the pattern to notice is bleeding that does not fit your own normal: between periods, much heavier than usual, or after sex.
What raises the risk
Things related to hormones and medicines: estrogen-only hormone replacement therapy after menopause. Tamoxifen, a drug used in breast cancer treatment. Both are things to discuss with the clinician who prescribed them rather than stop on your own.
Things that can change: obesity and metabolic syndrome. Type 2 diabetes.
Things nobody can change: longer lifetime exposure to estrogen, which includes starting periods early, reaching menopause late, and never giving birth. Polycystic ovary syndrome. A family history of endometrial cancer. Lynch syndrome and similar inherited conditions. Endometrial hyperplasia. Getting older.
Body weight sits higher on the list for this cancer than for most. NCI's obesity fact sheet reports that severe obesity is associated with around seven times the risk of endometrial cancer, the largest such association of any cancer. That is one reason the weight, alcohol, and food page is worth reading alongside this one.
Is there a test before symptoms start?
No. NCI states there is no standard or routine screening test for endometrial cancer.
There is one exception NCI names. For women who have or are at risk for Lynch syndrome, experts suggest yearly screening with transvaginal ultrasound, beginning as early as age 25. That applies to a specific inherited situation and is arranged with a care team.
For everyone else, symptoms do the work that a screening test does elsewhere. Which is why bleeding after menopause gets its own line on this page.
The numbers
These describe groups of people, not any one person. Each one names the agency it came from and the years it covers.
- New cases each year, United States
- About 68,270
- American Cancer Society projection, published by NCI SEER · 2026 estimate
- Deaths each year
- About 14,450
- American Cancer Society projection, published by NCI SEER · 2026 estimate
- Share of all new cancers
- 3.2 percent
- NCI SEER
- Median age at diagnosis
- 64
- NCI SEER
- Found while still in the uterus
- 67 percent
- NCI SEER
- Five-year relative survival, still in the uterus
- 94.9 percent
- NCI SEER · diagnoses 2016-2022
- Five-year relative survival, spread to distant parts of the body
- 19.9 percent
- NCI SEER · diagnoses 2016-2022
What people get wrong
Myth: A Pap test checks for uterine cancer.
What the evidence says: It does not. NCI states that Pap tests are not used to screen for endometrial cancer, though Pap results sometimes show signs of an abnormal endometrium. The Pap test screens for cervical cancer, which is a different cancer in a different place.
Read the sourceMyth: A little bleeding after menopause is normal.
What the evidence says: NCI lists vaginal bleeding after menopause as a symptom of endometrial cancer. Most causes turn out not to be cancer, but this is the one symptom on this page that should always be reported rather than watched.
Read the sourceMyth: Uterine cancer is rare.
What the evidence says: SEER describes uterine corpus cancer as the most common cancer of the female reproductive system, with a lifetime risk of about 3.1 percent of women. SEER also records new-case rates rising about 0.7 percent per year from 2014 to 2023.
Read the source
Words on this page
- Endometrium
- The lining of the uterus. Most uterine cancer starts here, which is why it is often called endometrial cancer.
- Menopause
- The point when periods have stopped for good. Any vaginal bleeding after this should be reported.
- Estrogen
- A hormone. Long exposure to estrogen without the balancing hormone progesterone raises the risk of endometrial cancer.
If you want more detail
These pages are longer and go further into the same topic.