Over 156,000 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in 2018, according to the Canadian Cancer Registry. That represents 546 new cancer diagnoses per 100,000 people. Statistics Canada says the five most commonly diagnosed cancers remained breast at 13 per cent, lung and bronchus 12.4 per cent, prostate 12 per cent, colorectal 10.5 per cent and urinary bladder at 4.9 per cent. Together, these five cancer types accounted for over half of the cancer diagnoses in 2018. Stats Canada notes that the potential impact of the temporary shutdown of screening services in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic will need to be assessed as more recent data become available.

Advancing age is the most important risk factor for most cancers. In 2018, fewer than 2% of all cancers were diagnosed among people under age 30, whereas over 70% were diagnosed among those aged 60 and older. The average age at diagnosis for all cancers combined increased slightly from 65.8 years in 1992 to 66.9 in 2018 because of population aging and a decrease in other causes of death.
On average, very few cancers were diagnosed at a younger age in 2018 than in 1992. However, prostate cancer was down 3.5 years, from 72.7 to 69.2 years of age, even though the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care stopped recommending prostate-specific antigen screening for healthy men of any age in 2014. Among the cancers for which screening programs were in place, only colorectal cancer was, on average, diagnosed earlier in 2018 (69.0 years) than in 1992 (69.7 years), mostly owing to a two-year decrease in the age at rectal cancer diagnosis (from 68.5 years in 1992 to 66.4 years in 2018).
While most new cancer cases tend to be diagnosed among the older segment of the population, some remain consistently associated with children, adolescents and young adults. In 2018, acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) had the youngest average age at diagnosis of all cancers (27.1 years), followed by testicular cancer (36.8 years) and Hodgkin lymphoma (43.3 years). About half of the reported cases were diagnosed by age 15 for ALL, by age 35 for testicular cancer and by age 40 for Hodgkin lymphoma.
On the other hand, many cancers are typically diagnosed at more advanced ages, with an average above 70 years of age. This was the case for most urinary tract cancers, such as those of the ureter (74.5 years) and urinary bladder (72.6 years). Other cancers that tend to be diagnosed at older ages include mesothelioma (73.7 years), which is a rare cancer often diagnosed among people with a history of asbestos exposure, lip cancer (73.0 years), gallbladder cancer (72.2), lung and bronchus cancer (71.7 years) and pancreatic cancer (71.4 years).