Nearly 10 million people die from cancer every year worldwide. That figure, from 2022 data compiled by the World Health Organization, makes cancer one of the leading causes of death on the planet. In the United States alone, the age-adjusted cancer death rate stands at about 139 per 100,000 people, and roughly 1,600 children and adolescents die of the disease each year.
Global Deaths by Cancer Type
Not all cancers are equally deadly. The five cancers responsible for the most deaths globally in 2022 were:
- Lung cancer: 1.82 million deaths
- Colorectal cancer: 904,000 deaths
- Liver cancer: 760,000 deaths
- Breast cancer: 666,000 deaths
- Stomach cancer: 660,000 deaths
Lung cancer kills roughly twice as many people as any other single cancer type. A major reason is its strong link to tobacco use. Globally, about 1.8 million cancer deaths in 2022 were directly attributable to smoking, accounting for nearly 19% of all cancer deaths that year. The burden falls disproportionately on men: smoking explained roughly 28% of male cancer deaths compared to about 7% of female cancer deaths, according to a 2022 population-level analysis published in EClinicalMedicine.
Cancer Deaths in the United States
U.S. projections for 2026 estimate about 125,000 deaths from lung and bronchial cancers, 55,230 from colorectal cancer, and 52,740 from pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer kills nearly as many Americans as colorectal cancer despite being far less common, because it is exceptionally hard to detect early. The five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is just 13.7%.
Among children and adolescents (ages 0 to 19), about 1,600 die of cancer each year in the U.S. That breaks down to roughly 1,040 children under 15 and 550 teenagers aged 15 to 19. While childhood cancer mortality has dropped significantly over the decades thanks to advances in treatment, cancer remains one of the leading causes of disease-related death in young people.
The U.S. Death Rate Is Falling
The overall cancer death rate in the United States peaked in 1991 at about 215 per 100,000 people. By 2024, it had dropped to roughly 139 per 100,000, a decline of more than 35%. Over the most recent decade (2015 to 2024), cancer death rates fell by an average of 1.5% per year.
That steady decline reflects a combination of factors: fewer people smoking, earlier detection through screening programs for breast, colorectal, and cervical cancers, and better treatments including targeted therapies and immunotherapy. The decline hasn’t been uniform across all cancer types, though. Deaths from liver cancer and certain other cancers have risen in some populations even as overall numbers improve.
Global Numbers Are Projected to Rise
While wealthier countries have seen cancer death rates fall, the global picture is heading in the opposite direction. The International Agency for Research on Cancer projects that worldwide cancer deaths will nearly double, rising from about 9.7 million in 2022 to roughly 18.5 million by 2050. That’s an increase of almost 90%.
Population aging is the single biggest driver. As people in low- and middle-income countries live longer, they reach the ages where cancer becomes most common, often without access to the screening and treatment infrastructure that has reduced mortality in wealthier nations. Rising rates of obesity, alcohol consumption, and tobacco use in parts of Africa, Asia, and South America also contribute. The gap between countries that can treat cancer effectively and those that cannot is expected to widen considerably over the next quarter century.
What Makes Some Cancers Deadlier Than Others
The death toll from any given cancer depends on two things: how many people get it and how survivable it is once diagnosed. Lung cancer tops the global death list because it scores poorly on both counts. It is common and often caught late, when treatment options are limited. Pancreatic cancer is less common but has an extremely low survival rate, which is why it kills nearly as many Americans as colorectal cancer despite far fewer diagnoses.
Breast cancer, by contrast, is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers worldwide but has a relatively high survival rate in countries with strong screening programs. In the U.S., the five-year survival rate for breast cancer exceeds 90% when caught at an early stage. In lower-income countries without routine mammography, the same disease kills at much higher rates simply because it’s found later.
Survival also depends on the biological behavior of the tumor. Some cancers grow slowly and remain confined to one area for years, giving doctors time to intervene. Others spread aggressively to distant organs within months. This is why a single “cancer survival rate” is misleading. The experience varies enormously depending on the type, the stage at diagnosis, and where in the world you live.