Introduction: Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the world, and it is expected to be the main cause by the year 2030. Current trends of higher incidence and the introduction of new treatments lead to the challenge of treating more people with increasing costs per capita. In Brazil, current and future challenges are even more significant because of the limited resources destined for healthcare.

Methods: We propose a methodology to compare cost-effectiveness performance with a regression of cancer lethality against the resources available for different nations, using the gross domestic product and the mortality-to-incidence ratio. Our objective is to evaluate and compare outcomes observed in Brazil.

Results: According to our methodology, Brazil is performing well in breast and prostate cancer (observed lethality 9% and 15% lower than expected, respectively). It performs close to expected in colon (0.8% higher) and cervix (2% higher). However, lung cancer had a higher lethality than expected (6.5% higher). We also found that breast, prostate and cervical cancers are the primary sites more related to income. Lung cancer had the weakest relationship with resources.

Conclusion: Brazil has different cost-effectiveness results in the management of cancer depending on the primary site. Also, national income has a significant and heterogeneous effect on the lethality of different tumour types. This economic analysis is important for low- to middle-income countries seeking to evaluate cancer outcomes in limited-resource settings.