How Many People Die From Mouth and Throat Cancer Every Year

Picture a dentist's surgery on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. The patient in the chair has come in for a filling. While the dentist is checking around the teeth, she notices a small white patch on the side of the tongue, slightly raised, with a red edge. The patient has never noticed it. It does not hurt. He smokes, likes a few pints most evenings, and has not been to a dentist in four years. She makes a note, asks a few questions, and writes an urgent referral.

That moment, a stranger looking carefully inside someone's mouth, is how a lot of mouth cancers are found. And it matters, because cancers of the mouth and throat are far easier to treat when they are small. Found late, they can mean major surgery to the jaw, tongue or voice box, and survival falls sharply.

Taken together, cancers of the mouth and throat kill around 418,000 people around the world every year. That is about 1,150 every day, part of the roughly 170,000 deaths a day you can watch on our live counter. This article breaks down the different types, where the deaths happen, the three big risk factors (tobacco, alcohol and HPV), and what the UK and US figures show.

What counts as mouth and throat cancer?

"Mouth and throat cancer" is not a single disease. Doctors usually group these cancers as head and neck cancers, and the global statistics report each part separately. In this article we use four sites from IARC's GLOBOCAN 2022 estimates.

Cancer site	Where it starts	Deaths worldwide (GLOBOCAN 2022)	New cases (GLOBOCAN 2022)
Lip and oral cavity	Lips, tongue, gums, floor and roof of the mouth, inside of cheeks	188,438	389,846
Larynx	Voice box	103,359	189,191
Nasopharynx	Upper throat behind the nose	73,482	120,434
Oropharynx	Middle of the throat, including the tonsils and base of the tongue	52,305	106,400
Total of these four		417,584	805,871

That total is our own sum of the four GLOBOCAN site figures, not a single published number. It leaves out cancers of the hypopharynx (the lowest part of the throat) and the salivary glands, so the true toll of mouth and throat cancer is somewhat higher. A 2025 analysis of GLOBOCAN 2022 head and neck data, which includes those sites, put deaths at about 527,000 a year among adults aged 20 and over.

The headline number, broken down

Using the four-site total of about 418,000 deaths a year, here is what the toll looks like over time.

Time period	Mouth and throat cancer deaths
Per year	about 418,000
Per month	about 34,800
Per week	about 8,030
Per day	about 1,150
Per hour	about 48
Per minute	about 1 every 75 seconds

Lip and oral cavity cancer is the biggest single group, ranked 15th among all cancers for deaths worldwide. Laryngeal cancer ranks 18th, nasopharyngeal 21st and oropharyngeal 23rd. Each is a mid-table cancer on its own, but together they kill nearly as many people as oesophageal cancer or pancreatic cancer.

Where the deaths happen

Mouth and throat cancers are not spread evenly around the world. Oral cancer is concentrated in South Asia, where chewing betel quid, areca nut and smokeless tobacco is common. India carries a very large share of the world's oral cancer deaths, and in parts of the country mouth cancer is among the most common cancers in men.

Nasopharyngeal cancer has an even more striking pattern. According to the GLOBOCAN 2022 fact sheet, Asia accounted for 61,442 of the 73,482 deaths (about 84%), with Africa next at 7,029. It is especially common in southern China and Southeast Asia, where it is linked to Epstein-Barr virus, genetic factors and traditional salted fish eaten from childhood.

Region or pattern	What drives it
South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka)	Betel quid, areca nut, smokeless tobacco, smoking
Southern China and Southeast Asia	Nasopharyngeal cancer linked to Epstein-Barr virus and salted fish
Central and Eastern Europe	Heavy smoking and drinking drive high laryngeal and oral cancer rates
UK, US, Northern Europe	Rising HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer in younger, non-smoking adults
Men everywhere	Men are several times more likely than women to die from most of these cancers

The sex gap is large. Researchers analysing GLOBOCAN 2022 found male disparity particularly pronounced for cancers of the lip and oral cavity, pharynx and nasopharynx, mostly because men have historically smoked and drunk more.

Tobacco, alcohol and HPV

Three risk factors dominate the story.

Risk factor	Which cancers	Notes
Smoking tobacco	All four sites, especially the larynx	The single biggest cause in most countries
Smokeless tobacco and areca nut	Mainly mouth	The main driver in South Asia
Alcohol	Mouth, oropharynx, larynx	Risk multiplies when combined with smoking
HPV (human papillomavirus)	Mainly oropharynx	A sexually transmitted virus, usually type 16
Epstein-Barr virus	Mainly nasopharynx	Very common virus; cancer is rare
Poor diet	Several sites	Low fruit and vegetable intake raises risk

Smoking and drinking are the classic pair. Each raises the risk on its own, but together the effect is much bigger than the two added up, because alcohol appears to help the chemicals in tobacco smoke get into the cells lining the mouth and throat. If you want the full picture of those two killers, read our articles on how many people die from smoking every day and how many people die from alcohol every day, or follow the live totals on the smoking and alcohol counter pages.

HPV is the newer part of the story. It is the same virus that causes almost all cervical cancer, and it can infect the tonsils and the base of the tongue. A large UK study of more than 1,400 oropharyngeal cancers diagnosed between 2002 and 2011 found that about 52% were HPV-positive. HPV-related throat cancers tend to affect younger people, often non-smokers, and they generally respond better to treatment than tobacco-related ones.

That is why the UK extended its HPV vaccination programme to boys as well as girls in 2019. The vaccine is expected to prevent many future throat cancers as well as cervical ones, although the full benefit will take decades to appear in the death figures because these cancers usually develop in middle age.

The UK picture

Cancer Research UK reports about 4,900 deaths a year from head and neck cancers in the UK (2022 to 2024). That is about 13 deaths every day, making head and neck cancer the 14th most common cause of cancer death in the United Kingdom.

UK measure	Figure (Cancer Research UK)
Head and neck cancer deaths each year	about 4,900 (2022 to 2024)
Deaths per day	about 13
Rank among cancer deaths	14th
Change in death rate over the last decade	up about 18%
Projected deaths by 2038 to 2040	about 6,700 a year

The rising trend stands out. Death rates for most cancers in the UK are falling, but head and neck cancer death rates have risen by around a sixth over the last decade. CRUK projects around 6,700 deaths a year by 2038 to 2040. The Oral Health Foundation reports that UK mouth cancer cases have reached around 10,000 a year, with HPV, an ageing population and alcohol all playing a part.

The US picture

The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2026 there will be about 60,480 new cases of oral cavity and pharynx cancer in the United States, and about 13,150 deaths.

US site (ACS 2026 estimate)	Deaths
Pharynx (throat)	4,760
Tongue	3,560
Mouth	3,340
Other oral cavity	1,490
Total oral cavity and pharynx	13,150

These figures do not include laryngeal cancer, which the ACS reports separately. The ACS notes that the death rate for mouth and throat cancers rose by about 0.7% a year from 2009 through 2022, mainly because deaths from oropharyngeal cancer rose by almost 2% a year. That increase is driven largely by HPV.

Survival and why early detection matters

Survival depends heavily on how early the cancer is found and on the type. HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancers have much better outcomes than tobacco-related ones. Small mouth cancers found on a routine dental check can often be removed with relatively minor surgery, while advanced cancers may need removal of part of the tongue or jaw, reconstruction and radiotherapy.

Laryngeal cancer is often found early because it changes the voice. Persistent hoarseness is one of the clearest warning signs in all of cancer medicine, and it is one reason laryngeal cancer survival is better than for cancers hidden deeper in the body.

Warning sign	What to look for
Mouth ulcer	An ulcer that has not healed after 3 weeks
White or red patches	Patches on the gums, tongue or lining of the mouth
Lump	A lump in the mouth, on the lip or in the neck
Hoarseness	A hoarse or changed voice lasting more than 3 weeks
Swallowing	Pain or difficulty swallowing
Ear pain	Pain in one ear with no ear infection
Loose teeth	Teeth that become loose for no clear reason

The NHS advises seeing a GP or dentist about any of these that last more than three weeks. Regular dental check-ups are one of the cheapest cancer screening tools there is, because dentists are trained to look for the early signs of mouth cancer.

How it compares with other cancers

Cancer	Deaths worldwide each year (GLOBOCAN 2022)
Lung	about 1,817,000
Liver	about 759,000
Pancreatic	about 467,000
Oesophageal	about 445,000
Mouth and throat (four sites)	about 418,000
Bladder	about 221,000

Mouth and throat cancers share many risk factors with lung cancer, liver cancer and oesophageal cancer. Tobacco and alcohol run through all of them. That is part of why the cancer cause page and our overview of how many people die from cancer every day keep coming back to the same two habits.

The bottom line

Cancers of the mouth and throat kill around 418,000 people a year across the four main sites, roughly 1,150 a day, and the full head and neck total is higher still. Most of those deaths are linked to tobacco and alcohol, while HPV now drives a growing share of throat cancers in wealthy countries. In the UK, around 4,900 people die from head and neck cancers each year and the rate is rising. In the US, mouth and throat cancers will kill about 13,150 people in 2026. Quitting smoking, cutting down on alcohol, HPV vaccination and regular dental check-ups can all lower the risk.

If you want to see how habits like smoking and drinking change your own statistical outlook, try our Death Clock.

This article takes around twelve minutes to read. In that time, roughly 10 people around the world have died from cancers of the mouth and throat, and about 1,400 people have died from all causes. You can watch that number grow on our live death counter.

---

Sources: IARC GLOBOCAN 2022 fact sheets for lip and oral cavity, larynx, nasopharynx and oropharynx (Global Cancer Observatory); 2025 analysis of global head and neck cancer burden using GLOBOCAN 2022; Cancer Research UK, Head and neck cancers mortality statistics (2022 to 2024); Oral Health Foundation, State of Mouth Cancer UK Report; American Cancer Society, Cancer Facts and Figures 2026 and Key Statistics for Oral Cavity and Oropharyngeal Cancers; Schache et al., HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer in the UK (2016); NHS, Mouth cancer and head and neck cancer symptoms. The four-site total is our own sum. Figures are rounded and estimates differ between sources. This article is for general information only and is not medical advice. If you are worried about a symptom, speak to your GP or dentist.