Abstract Background Breast cancer in women and prostate cancer are the first and second leading tumour respectively in terms of incidence world-wide. Our objective is to ascertain the similarities and differences between mortality trends in breast cancer among women and prostate cancer in Spain using age-period-cohort models, and analyse the correlation between incidence of breast and prostate cancer at cancer registries locally and world-wide. Methods We analysed the independent effects of age, period of death and birth cohort on mortality rates for breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in Spain across the period 1952–2011. Segmented regression analyses were performed to detect and estimate changes in period and cohort curvatures. Correlation among age-adjusted incidence rates at 246 population cancer registries world-wide was analysed for the period 2003–2007. Results The mortality trend displayed common characteristics in terms of the annual number of deaths due to these tumours, their adjusted mortality rates and the change points detected in the cohort and period effects. The trend in incidence was very different to that in mortality, due to early detection and progressive improvement in survival. Correlation between the incidence rates of both tumours recorded by registries around the world proved to be a generalised phenomenon. Conclusions This study shows that breast cancer mortality in women and prostate cancer mortality and their trends in Spain display visible similarities in terms of the number of deaths due to these tumours, their adjusted mortality rates and the changes experienced by mortality over time. The effects of advances in the diagnosis of both tumours correspond to a decline in mortality which becomes evident after a lag of approximately eight years. Correlation between breast and prostate cancer incidence rates is very high in Spain and at registries on all continents.