2,971 publications from this institution
Inappropriate measures of exposure, including inadequate consideration of latency in the analysis of chronic effects of air pollution, may lead to overestimation of the impact of air pollution on health effects. A relatively simple way to check the plausibility of results on chronic effects of air pollution would be to report in parallel the smoking-associated risks.
We estimated mortality figures for 2019 in seven Latin American countries, with focus on breast cancer. We retrieved cancer death certification and population data from the WHO and PAHO databases. We obtained mortality statistics for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela for 1970-2015. We predicted current death numbers and age-standardised (world population) mortality rates using joinpoint regression models. Total cancer mortality is predicted to decline in all countries and both sexes, except Argentinian women. Cuba had the highest all cancer rates for 2019, 136.9/100,000 men and 90.4 women, while Mexico showed the lowest ones, 63.8/100,000 men and 61.9 women. Stomach cancer showed favourable trends over the whole period, while colorectal cancer only recently. Lung cancer rates declined in men, while in women they decreased slightly over the most recent years, only. In Cuban women, lung cancer rates overtook breast cancer ones. Breast cancer showed overall favourable trends, but rates are rising in young women. Prostate and uterine cancer had favourable trends. Pancreas, ovary, bladder and leukaemias showed slightly decreasing trends. Between 1990 and 2019, mortality from all neoplasms is predicted to fall by about 18% in Argentina, 26% in Chile, 14% in Colombia, 17% in Mexico and 13% in Venezuela, corresponding to almost 0.5 million avoided cancer deaths. No decline was observed in Brazil and Cuba. Of concern, the persisting high rates of (cervix) uterus cancer, the high lung cancer rates in Cuba, the possible increases in breast cancer in young women, and the lack of overall declines in Brazil, Cuba and Venezuelan men.
Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche 'Mario Negri', Via Eritrea 62, 20157 Milano, and Istituto di Statistica Medica e Biometria, Università di Milano, Via Venezian 1, 20133 Milano, Italy Fax: (+39) 02 3546 277. E-mail: [email protected] *This paper was an invited presentation of the 18th Annual Symposium of European Cancer Prevention Organisation (ECP): Precancerous lesions of the digestive tract held in Maastricht, The Netherlands, 12–14 October, 2000
Thyroid cancer is one of the rarest forms of cancer, and yet there are wide variations in the degree of malignancy, ranging from the most rapidly fatal to the relatively benign. This difference depends almost entirely on the histological type. A "pool" of individuals with occult thyroid carcinomas (in the vast majority of the papillary type) is probably present in most populations even at a young age. Large differences in the estimated frequency of cancer at this site can therefore be caused by variation in diagnostic intensity. Data on changing trends of incidence and mortality are thus subject to reservation, depending on the degree to which they have been influenced by changing diagnostic criteria and the precision of histopathological description. Nevertheless, there is evidence that mortality is slowly falling, whereas incidence is increasing, in several countries. This chapter considers the upward temporal trends of incidence and substantially stable mortality rates for thyroid carcinoma in the past three decades and attempts to interpret these trends in the light of concurrent changes in diagnostic standards and histological classification. Attention will also be drawn to the public health implications of the recent intensive detection and treatment of occult thyroid carcinomas.
The role of alcohol consumption on the risk of renal cell cancer was investigated separately for women and men, in a case-control study of 348 people with incident histologically confirmed cancer and 1048 hospital controls from northern Italy. No significant relationship emerged, nor any differences between the sexes. The odds ratios were 1.2 (95% confidence interval, 0.6-2.4) for the highest tertile of intake in women (>or=3 drinks per day) and 0.8 (0.4-1.3) for the highest quartile of intake in men (>or=6 drinks per day).
In some areas of China, indoor air pollution (IAP) originating principally from the combustion of solid fuels has a relevant role in lung cancer. Most previous studies focused on the female population and only a few on both the sexes. We analyzed the relationship between IAP from solid fuel use and selected chronic lung diseases and lung cancer risk in Harbin, Northeast China, an area with a very high base line risk of lung cancer for both the sexes. We used data from a case-control study conducted between 1987 and 1990, including 218 patients with incident, histologically confirmed lung cancer and 436 controls admitted to the same hospitals as cases. We calculated an index of IAP from solid fuel use exposure using data on heating type, cooking fuel used, and house measurements. Cases reported more frequently than controls an exposure to coal fuel for house heating and/or cooking, and the odds ratio (OR) for ever versus never exposed was 2.19 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.08-4.46]. The ORs of lung cancer according to subsequent tertiles of IAP exposure index were 1.82 (95% CI: 1.14-2.89) and 1.99 (95% CI: 1.26-3.15) as compared with the lowest tertile. The ORs of lung cancer for participants with a history of chronic bronchitis and tuberculosis were 3.79 (95% CI: 2.38-6.02) and 3.82 (95% CI: 1.97-7.41), respectively. This study gives further support and quantification of the positive association between IAP, history of selected nonmalignant lung diseases, and lung cancer risk for both the sexes.
In the countries considered, predicted downward trends started later and were less marked than those in the European Union and the USA. Despite overall favorable predictions, colorectal cancer remains one of the major causes of cancer mortality.
