Nearly 10 million people die of cancer worldwide each year. In 2022, the most recent year with global data, an estimated 9.7 million cancer deaths occurred, making cancer responsible for roughly one in every six deaths on the planet. In the United States alone, an estimated 618,120 people will die from cancer in 2025.
Deaths by Cancer Type
Not all cancers are equally deadly. Lung cancer kills more people than any other type by a wide margin. In the U.S., lung and bronchus cancers are expected to cause about 124,990 deaths in 2026, more than double the next leading cause. Colorectal cancer follows at 55,230 deaths, then pancreatic cancer at 52,740, breast cancer at 42,670, and prostate cancer at 36,320.
Pancreatic cancer’s place on this list is notable because it is far less common than breast or prostate cancer, yet it kills nearly as many people. That reflects its low survival rate: most pancreatic cancers are caught late, when treatment options are limited. Lung cancer’s outsized death toll, meanwhile, is driven both by how common it is and by how often it is diagnosed at an advanced stage.
Cancer Death Rates Are Falling
Despite the large raw numbers, cancer is becoming less deadly on a per-person basis in the United States. The age-adjusted cancer death rate peaked in 1991 at about 215 per 100,000 people. By 2024, that rate had dropped to roughly 139 per 100,000, a decline of more than 35% over three decades. In recent years, the rate has been falling by an average of 1.5% per year.
This progress comes from a combination of factors: fewer people smoking, better screening catching cancers earlier, and more effective treatments for several major cancer types. Still, the total number of cancer deaths remains high because the U.S. population is growing and aging, and cancer becomes more common with age.
Who Is Most Affected
Cancer does not affect all groups equally. Black Americans have the highest overall cancer death rate of any racial or ethnic group in the United States. Black men are especially affected: they have the highest rates of developing and dying from lung cancer, and they are more than twice as likely to die from prostate cancer compared to men of other racial and ethnic backgrounds. Black women, while less likely than White women to be diagnosed with breast cancer, are more likely to die from it. The same pattern holds for cervical cancer.
These disparities reflect a mix of factors, including differences in access to screening and treatment, later-stage diagnoses, and higher exposure to certain risk factors.
Geography matters on a global scale, too. Low- and middle-income countries account for 57% of new cancer cases but 65% of cancer deaths. The gap exists largely because these countries have less access to early detection, surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy.
Nearly Half of Cancer Deaths Are Preventable
One of the most striking findings in cancer research is how many deaths are tied to modifiable risk factors. A study led by the American Cancer Society found that about half of all cancer deaths in U.S. adults aged 30 and older could be attributed to preventable causes. That translated to roughly 262,120 deaths in a single year (2019) linked to factors people can change.
Cigarette smoking is the single biggest contributor, responsible for nearly 30% of all cancer deaths and about 20% of cancer cases. Excess body weight ranks second, contributing to 7.6% of cases, followed by alcohol consumption at 5.4%, UV radiation exposure at 4.6%, and physical inactivity at 3.1%. These numbers mean that lifestyle changes at a population level could prevent hundreds of thousands of cancer deaths each year in the U.S. alone.
Cancer in Children
While cancer overwhelmingly affects older adults, it is also the leading disease-related cause of death in children. In 2022, more than 275,000 children and adolescents aged 0 to 19 were diagnosed with cancer worldwide, and more than 105,000 died from it. Survival rates for childhood cancers vary dramatically by country. In high-income nations, more than 80% of children with cancer survive, while survival rates in low-income countries can be below 30%, largely due to late diagnosis and limited treatment access.
The Global Outlook
The worldwide cancer burden is expected to keep growing. Population aging is the primary driver: as more people live into their 60s, 70s, and beyond, more will develop cancer simply because the disease becomes more common with each decade of life. Rising rates of obesity, physical inactivity, and alcohol use in many countries add to the trend. The WHO reported 20 million new cancer cases globally in 2022, and that number is projected to rise significantly in the coming decades, with the greatest increases expected in low- and middle-income countries that are least equipped to handle them.