Key Statistics for Thyroid Cancer

How common is thyroid cancer?

The American Cancer Society’s most recent estimates for thyroid cancer in the United States are for 2023:

• About 43,720 new cases of thyroid cancer (12,540 in men and 31,180 in women)
• About 2,120 deaths from thyroid cancer (970 in men and 1,150 in women)

Thyroid cancer is often diagnosed at a younger age than most other adult cancers. The average age when a person is diagnosed with thyroid cancer is 51.

This cancer is about 3 times more common in women than in men, and it is about 70% more common in White people than in Black people, who have the lowest rate.

Trends in thyroid cancer statistics

Until recently, rate of new thyroid cancers was growing faster than for any other cancer in the US. This was largely due to increased detection during imaging tests such as CT or MRI scans that were done for other medical problems. These sensitive tests can sometimes detect small thyroid nodules that might not otherwise have been found (and many of which might never have caused any problems). However, due in part to adoption of more stringent criteria for diagnosing thyroid cancer, the incidence rate has declined by about 2% each year since 2014.

The death rate for thyroid cancer was stable from 2011 to 2020 in both men and women.

Statistics on survival rates for thyroid cancer are discussed in Survival Rates for Thyroid Cancer.

Visit the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Statistics Center for more key statistics.