In 2019, cancer resulted in 222,060 incident cases and 105,591 deaths in Mexico.[2] Although neoplasms (benign and malignant) moved from the second to the third leading cause of death in Mexico between 1990 and 2019, mortality rates caused by this group of diseases increased by 126.05% during this period.[2] This article focuses on the absolute number and trends of cancer deaths, but does not state cancer deaths as a percentage of all deaths in Mexico.[2]

The registered death statistics have the purpose to generate and disseminate information on the phenomenon of mortality in the country. They are based on death certificates and classify causes of death according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Users can consult tables and databases on deaths by cause, age, sex, and other variables for all of Mexico and by state. These official INEGI data are the primary source for proportions of deaths due to specific causes such as malignant neoplasms (cancer).

In 2013, cancer was the cause of 12.84% of all deaths in Mexico. In 2000, cancer was responsible for 12.7% of deaths; in 2013, cancer accounted for 12.8% of all deaths and was the third leading cause of death in the country, after only heart disease (24.3%) and diabetes (14.3%).

GLOBOCAN and the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) estimates place Mexico’s cancer mortality among the lowest in the Americas. GBD’s 2017 age-standardized cancer mortality rate for Mexico was 86.3 per 100,000, the lowest in Latin America only after Nicaragua (71.3 per 100,000). México tiene una de las más bajas tasas de mortalidad por cáncer en Latinoamérica (Mexico has one of the lowest cancer mortality rates in Latin America).

Cancer is the fourth leading cause of mortality in Mexico, and one in 14 premature (before the age of 75) deaths (30%) will be due to cancer between 2023 and 2050. In total, there will be an estimated 46,200 premature deaths from cancer every year, and the average population life expectancy will be 0.9 years lower than if there were no cancer. 1 in 14 premature deaths are due to cancer.

Mexico recorded 819,672 deaths in 2024, a 2.5% increase from the previous year, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI). Heart disease caused 192,518 deaths, followed by diabetes with 112,577 and malignant tumors with 95,108. The three leading causes of death—heart disease, diabetes mellitus, and malignant tumors—together accounted for more than 400,000 cases. INEGI noted that 89.6% of deaths were due to diseases and health-related problems, while 10.4% resulted from external causes such as accidents and violence.

The Global Burden of Disease 2021 booklet explains that GBD provides estimates of death counts and shares by cause for each country, including Mexico. It reports that non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease and neoplasms account for the majority of deaths globally, with neoplasms typically representing around 15% of deaths in many middle-income countries. These percentages are derived from the GBD 2021 cause-specific mortality estimates.

From 2010 to 2022, there were 1,136,998 deaths attributed to cancer in Mexico, accounting for 11.89% of total deaths. Malignant tumors ranked among the leading causes of death in the country during this period. The study used mortality data from INEGI’s Estadísticas de Defunciones Registradas (EDR) to estimate cancer’s share of total deaths and found that the proportion of deaths due to cancer increased over time, although it remained lower than that of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.

Number of cancer deaths: 46,006 (males), 50,258 (females), 96,264 (both sexes). All cancers: 201,137 new cases; risk of developing cancer before age 75 years: 13.7%. All cancers: 96,264 deaths; risk of dying from cancer before age 75 years: 6.5%.

The GBD health-by-location profiles use GBD 2023 results and provide, for each country, the breakdown of deaths by broad cause group including neoplasms. For Mexico, the profile shows a cause of death composition in which neoplasms constitute on the order of 14–15% of total deaths in recent years, based on IHME’s standardized estimates.

Overall cancer incidence (rate per 100,000 persons per year): 140.9. Overall cancer mortality (rate per 100,000 persons per year): 63.5. Most common cancer site by incidence for females (rate per 100,000 persons per year): breast (28.8).

The cancer mortality rate went from 117.87 per 100,000 in 1990 to 84.18 per 100,000 in 2021 in Mexico. In women, breast, cervical, stomach and lung cancers were the most frequent, whereas in men the most common were prostate, stomach, lung, and colon and rectum cancer. Using data from the Global Burden of Disease study and Mexican mortality statistics, the authors describe trends in cancer deaths but note that, overall, cancer represents a smaller fraction of total mortality compared with cardiovascular causes and diabetes.

The WHO country data page for Mexico provides mortality by cause statistics, showing that noncommunicable diseases account for the large majority of deaths. In WHO’s cause-of-death distribution, cancers (malignant neoplasms) form a substantial fraction of total deaths; for upper‑middle‑income countries like Mexico, this fraction is typically in the mid‑teens (around 13–16% of all deaths), consistent with estimates that cancer accounts for roughly 14% of annual deaths in Mexico.

According to recent data, Mexico's death rate from cancer is 37 percent that of the United States. This rate, though, clashes with the higher mortality rates for many cancers detected in late stages in Mexico. Mexico has one of the lowest age-standardized cancer mortality rates in Latin America but faces significant data deficiencies in cancer care.

Mexico has the second-lowest cancer death rate globally. Mexico has lower rates of risk factors like tobacco usage, alcohol consumption, UV exposure, and occupational risk compared to countries with high cancer rates. For Mexico, the age-standardized rate of cancer incidence is reported as 140.4 per 100,000, and the age-standardized rate of cancer mortality as 63.2 per 100,000, with 530,602 people living with cancer.

The cancer mortality rate went from 117.87 in 1990 to 84.18 in 2021. In women, breast, cervical, stomach and lung cancers were the most frequent causes of cancer death. The study analyzes cancer mortality in Mexico using results of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study and national mortality data.

In this period, 397,400 deaths due to malignant neoplasms were recorded, corresponding 45,578 (11.5%) to lung cancer. For men, 31,025 (68.1%) of lung cancer deaths occurred, with an age-adjusted mortality rate of 8.9 per 100,000. Lung cancer represented 11.5% of all cancer deaths in Mexico in the period analyzed.

COVID-19 was the leading cause of death in Mexico in 2021, surpassing heart disease and diabetes. According to national statistics, heart disease and diabetes were the second and third leading causes of death, respectively, while malignant tumors (cancers) remained among the top causes but accounted for a smaller share of total deaths than these conditions. The article, based on INEGI data, highlights that chronic noncommunicable diseases—especially cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer—together explain a large proportion of mortality in Mexico.

Using GBD 2019 data, we analysed DALYs rates and prevalence for T2D; CKD; total cancers and neoplasms combined; and cardiovascular diseases, hypertensive heart diseases, stroke and rheumatic heart diseases combined, for adults 20 years and older across Mexico.[3,18] The deaths caused by cancers and neoplasms have increased, but the age-standardized rate has decreased nationally and for both genders. DALYs and mortality caused by T2D, cancers and neoplasms, CVDs, CRDs and CKD has increased importantly in Mexico between 1990 and 2020 for men.

Our World in Data’s health country profile for Mexico presents a visualization of deaths by cause categories. For 2023, the chart shows that 634,000 deaths were from non-communicable diseases and displays boxes for specific causes like cardiovascular disease and cancer. The box for cancer (neoplasms) represents roughly one seventh of the total area, indicating that neoplasms account for approximately 14–15% of total deaths in Mexico in that year, based on IHME/GBD data used by Our World in Data.

Exploring the total global cancer burden – incidence, rates and mortality by country. For Mexico, the number of new cancer cases is reported as 207,154, with an age-standardized incidence rate of 140.9 per 100,000. These data are drawn from GLOBOCAN 2020/2022 and show Mexico among countries with relatively lower cancer mortality rates.

In Mexico, the raw mortality rate for lung cancer was 5.01 per 10^5 inhabitants in 1979. Tobacco is described as its most important risk factor. The authors discuss trends in lung cancer mortality and how they contribute to overall cancer deaths in the country, noting that lung cancer represents a subset of total neoplasm-related mortality, which itself accounts for a significant but not dominant proportion of all deaths.

In Mexico, the top 10 healthcare amenable causes of death represented 48% of mortality in 2021, excluding COVID-19. The most important cause of death was ischemic heart disease, with almost 100 deaths per 100,000 people in 2021, or 15% of the national mortality. Overall, the share of quality‑amenable deaths ranges from 17.6% for colon and rectum cancer to 99.5% for ischemic stroke, highlighting a significant burden of cancer among amenable causes though not the largest single cause.

Mortality rates for all neoplasms showed an upward trend in men of all ages (from 58.2 per 100,000 in 1970–74 to 87.1 per 100,000 in 1995–99) and in middle-aged men (from 71.9 per 100,000 to 100.8 per 100,000).[9] The study examines long-term trends in cancer mortality in Mexico from 1970 to 1999 using national mortality statistics, but it reports rates per 100,000 and not cancer deaths as a percentage of total deaths.[9]

This page lists countries by cancer rate (incidence and mortality), presenting figures such as annual cancer deaths and age-standardized death rates per 100,000 population for each country.[5] For Mexico, the table shows cancer death counts and age-standardized death rates across several years, but it does not express cancer deaths as a percentage of all deaths from all causes in Mexico.[5]

An analysis of avoidable mortality in Mexico by Franco-Marina et al. found that 39% of all deaths in Mexico were avoidable, with 65% attributed to non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Although the paper focuses on avoidable deaths, it underscores that non-communicable diseases—including cancers—constitute a major share of mortality in Mexico, consistent with estimates that neoplasms account for a substantial minority of total deaths.

Mexico has one of the lowest cancer mortality rates in Latin America and in the Americas more broadly, as documented by GLOBOCAN and GBD analyses. Cancer is consistently reported as the second, third, or fourth leading cause of death in Mexico, accounting for around one-eighth of all deaths in earlier national data. Recent international estimates focus on age-standardized cancer mortality rates rather than directly stating the proportion of all deaths attributable to cancer.