International cancer patterns in men: geographical and temporal variations in cancer risk and the role of gender

Abstract The comparison of disease risk in populations stratified by certain demographic variables provides important clues as to the underlying causes of disease. There are fundamental variations in the risk of occurrence of different cancers by gender, area of residence, and time of diagnosis. Men are, for instance, at considerably higher risk of developing most of the common cancers that occur in both sexes, and there are substantial variations in the occurrence of particular cancers in different regions of the World. This paper attempts to highlight some of these remarkable variations using cancer incidence data by sex, area of residence and year of diagnosis, emphasising the strong evidence that many of the contrasts can be appropriated to a number of modifiable “environmental” factors. Rates of cancer occurrence in the developed world are double that of less developed regions, although risk patterns are of very different magnitude and direction depending on the cancer site examined. Lung cancer is t...