This paper examines mortality differentials in Brazil and states between 1980 and 2010 , using the Brazilian Ministry of Health Database. We use Modal age at death and Interquartile Range (IQR) to analyze regional (by state) and gender differences. We estimate age-specific mortality rates by single ages using two approaches: Wilmoth and colleagues Log-Quad and TOPALS method proposed by Schmertmann and Gonzaga. Our results show that provincial disparities in mortality in general across regions of the country diminished. Moreover, based on the modal age at death and the interquartile range (IQR) of ages at death. There are important regional differences in the age at death distributions concerning young-adult ages, specifically for males. We identified two main differences between the Log-Quad and Topals applications: the first one was not able to capture the high concentration in the number of deaths in young adult males; in TOPALS the number of deaths around the modal age rises at a slower pace compared to LQ. In all cases, both modal age and IQR were lower in Log-Quad estimates. Women have higher modal age and lower IQR. We find that there is a process of compression of mortality with increasing modal age at death and IQR diminution.