Soft tissue sarcoma incidence | Sarcoma UK
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Soft tissue sarcoma incidence

Key findings:

    • Between 2013 and 2017, there were 19,717 cases of soft tissue sarcoma recorded in England – an average of 3,943 cases a year. 
    • There was a combined incidence of 78 persons per million, or 12 new diagnoses a day.
    • Cases of soft tissue sarcoma accounted for 0.8% of all newly diagnosed cancers.
    • The most common diagnoses were Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumours (GIST), leiomyosarcoma and undifferentiated sarcoma, accounting for 20.2%, 13.3% and 12.7% of all soft tissue sarcomas sarcomas, respectively.
    • The median age at diagnosis for all soft tissue sarcomas was 65.

You can explore more of the findings in the table below, or access the full paper here.

Table 1: Incidence of all soft tissue sarcoma subgroups and subtypes diagnosed in England per million, per year between 2013 and 2017.

Soft tissue sarcoma subgroup and subtype Total number of people diagnosed 2013-2017 Median age at diagnosis Average number of people diagnosed per year Number of cases per million – ALL people Number of cases per million – MALES only Number of cases per million – FEMALES only
All soft tissue sarcomas 19 717 65 3943 72 74.36 69.7
Gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST) 3976 68 795 14.52 15.24 13.82
Gastrointestinal stromal tumours (intermediate behaviour) 2792 69 558 10.2 10.33 10.06
Gastrointestinal stromal tumours (malignant) 1184 67 237 4.32 4.91 3.76
Leiomyosarcoma 2627 64 525 9.59 8.15 11
Epithelioid leiomyosarcoma 59 64 12 0.22 0.13 0.3
Leiomyosarcoma NOS 2541 64 508 9.28 7.98 10.55
Myxoid leiomyosarcoma 27 59 5 0.1 0.04 0.15
Undifferentiated sarcoma 2501 74 500 9.13 12 6.34
Fibrous histiocytoma, malignant 230 78 46 0.84 1.34 0.35
Undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma/giant cell sarcoma 1097 77 219 4.01 5.91 2.16
Spindle cell sarcoma 867 69 173 0.84 1.34 0.35
Undifferentiated round cell sarcoma* 28 49 5 0.1 0.13 0.07
Undifferentiated sarcoma 279 70 56 1.02 1.04 1
Liposarcoma 2270 65 454 8.29 10.86 5.78
Dedifferentiated liposarcoma 533 68 107 1.95 2.63 1.28
Fibroblastic liposarcoma 6 53 1 0.02 0.04 0.01
Liposarcoma, NOS; fibroliposarcoma 572 67 114 2.09 2.72 1.48
Liposarcoma, well differentiated 548 65 110 2 2.45 1.56
Mixed liposarcoma 9 64 2 0.03 0.04 0.02
Myxoid liposarcoma; myxoliposarcoma 360 46 72 1.31 1.73 0.91
Pleomorphic liposarcoma* 230 70 46 0.03 0.04 0.02
Round cell liposarcoma 12 40 2 0.04 0.04 0.04
Other malignant soft tissue tumours 1925 71 385 7.03 6.68 7.37
Adenosarcoma 226 61 45 — — 1.63
Angiomyoliposarcoma 5 47 1 0.02 0.02 0.01
Extraskeletal chondrosarcoma 117 62 24 0.43 0.52 0.34
Extraskeletal clear cell chondrosarcoma 1 28 0 0 0.01 0
Extraskeletal dedifferentiated chondrosarcoma 6 49 1 0.02 0.01 0.03
Embryonal sarcoma* 11 11 2 0.04 0.03 0.05
Giant cell tumour of soft part, NOS* 6 48 1 0.02 0.01 0.03
Malignant tumour, giant cell type 2 0 0.01 0 0.01
Malignant tumour, spindle cell type 23 72 5 0.08 0.1 0.07
Mesenchymal chondrosarcoma* 11 26 2 0.04 0.03 0.05
Mesenchymoma, malignant 19 62 4 0.07 0.07 0.06
Myosarcoma 4 58 1 0.01 0.01 0.02
Extraskeletal osteosarcoma, NOS* 47 65 9 0.17 0.19 0.16
Sarcoma, NOS 1430 74 286 5.22 5.68 4.78
Stromal sarcoma 17 58 3 0.06 0.01 0.12
Myxoid fibroblastic sarcomas 967 68 193 3.53 4.09 2.98
Low-grade fibromyxoid sarcoma* 79 49 16 0.29 0.33 0.25
Myxofibrosarcoma 888 69 178 3.24 3.76 2.74
Vascular tumours 948 70 190 3.46 2.85 4.06
Angiomyosarcoma 39 68 8 0.14 0.15 0.14
Epithelioid haemangioendothelioma, malignant* 68 53 14 0.14 0.15 0.14
Glomus tumour, malignant glomus tumour* 8 41 2 0.03 0.02 0.04
Haemangioendothelioma, malignant* 13 64 3 0.05 0.05 0.04
Haemangiosarcoma, angiosarcoma of soft tissue 820 71 164 2.99 2.43 3.54
Soft tissue tumours of intermediate behaviour 955 53 191 3.49 3.46 3.52
Abdominal fibromatosis 143 39 29 0.52 0.29 0.75
Angiomatoid fibrous histiocytoma* 35 18 7 0.13 0.13 0.13
Atypical lipomatous tumours 516 61 103 1.88 2.26 1.52
Giant cell fibroblastoma 6 30 1 0.02 0.03 0.01
Giant cell tumour of soft parts (morphologic abnormality)* 117 48 23 0.43 0.27 0.58
Glomangiomatosis (pericytic tumours) 12 59 2 0.04 0.06 0.03
Haemangioendothelioma, NOS* 36 13 7 0.13 0.12 0.14
Myofibromatosis, NOS 26 1 5 0.09 0.1 0.09
Myxoinflammatory fibroblastic sarcoma* 29 59 6 0.11 0.07 0.14
Pleomorphic hyalinizing angiectatic tumour (PHAT) 6 64 1 0.02 0.02 0.02
Plexiform fibrohistiocytic tumour 21 13 4 0.08 0.07 0.09
Retiform haemangioendothelioma 8 38 2 0.03 0.02 0.04
Dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans 734 44 147 2.68 2.49 2.86
Fibrosarcomatous dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans N/A
Endometrial stromal sarcoma 394 55 79 — — 2.84
Endometrial stromal sarcoma* 241 58 48 — — 1.74
Endometrial stromal sarcoma, low grade* 153 50 31 — — 1.1
Synovial 397 42 79 1.45 1.57 1.33
Synovial sarcoma, biphasic 48 39 10 0.18 0.19 0.16
Synovial sarcoma, epithelioid cell 2 47 0 0.01 0 0.01
Synovial sarcoma, NOS 277 42 55 1.01 1.06 0.97
Synovial sarcoma, spindle cell 70 43 14 0.26 0.3 0.21
Rhabdomyosarcoma 559 16 112 2.04 2.24 1.85
Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma* 156 15 31 0.57 0.59 0.55
Embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma* 180 7 36 0.66 0.75 0.56
Mixed type rhabdomyosarcoma 3 20 1 0.01 0.01 0.01
Pleomorphic rhabdomyosarcoma* 70 70 14 0.26 0.27 0.24
Rhabdomyosarcoma, NOS; rhabdosarcoma 121 42 24 0.44 0.47 0.42
Spindle cell rhabdomyosarcoma* 29 19 6 0.11 0.15 0.06
Tumours of uncertain differentiation 425 46 85 1.55 1.75 1.36
Alveolar soft part sarcoma* 28 27 6 0.1 0.1 0.11
Clear cell sarcoma (except of kidney M8964/3)* 44 33 9 0.16 0.16 0.17
Clear cell sarcoma of kidney* 14 3 3 0.05 0.07 0.04
Desmoplastic small round cell tumour* 59 23 12 0.22 0.3 0.13
Epithelioid sarcoma* 97 49 19 0.35 0.41 0.3
Mixed tumour NOS, malignant* 12 69 2 0.04 0.07 0.01
Myoepithelial carcinoma* 64 66 13 0.23 0.22 0.25
Extraskeletal myxoid chondrosarcoma* 69 62 14 0.25 0.29 0.22
Rhabdoid sarcoma (extra-renal rhabdoid tumour) 38 1 8 0.14 0.14 0.14
Myofibrosarcomas and other fibroblastic sarcomas 391 61 78 1.43 1.51 1.35
Fibrosarcoma, NOS 62 64 12 0.23 0.28 0.17
Haemangiopericytoma 28 60 6 0.1 0.1 0.1
Infantile fibrosarcoma; congenital fibrosarcoma* 15 0 3 0.05 0.07 0.04
Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumour* 78 51 16 0.28 0.27 0.3
Malignant tenosynovial giant cell tumour* 18 45 4 0.07 0.07 0.06
Solitary fibrous tumour, NOS 190 65 38 0.69 0.71 0.68
Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumours (MPNST) 359 49 72 1.31 1.45 1.17
Granular cell tumour, malignant 7 46 1 0.03 0.03 0.02
MPNST with rhabdomyoblastic differentiation 29 35 6 0.11 0.16 0.06
Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumour, NOS 257 50 51 0.94 1.01 0.86
Malignant schwannoma; neurilemoma, malignant 59 50 12 0.22 0.24 0.19
Perineurioma, malignant; perineural MPNST 5 50 1 0.02 0.01 0.03
Rhabdomyosarcoma with ganglionic differentiation 2 2 0 0.01 — 0.01
Phyllodes tumour 289 56 58 — — 2.08

Incidence recorded as number of cases per million people by subgroup and individual morphological subtypes.

Ultra-rare soft tissue sarcomas (CTOS defined list based on 2020 WHO classification with incidence ≤ 1/million) are in blue and denoted with *.

As all cancer diagnoses are required to be registered in England with data completeness established as being over 98% complete within a year and reaching 100% after 5 years of diagnosis, this analysis offers an accurate population-based incidence of sarcoma in England.

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