Cancer mortality in Italy, 1992

Background: Data and statistics are presented on cancer death certification in Italy, updating previous publications covering the period 1955-1991. Methods: Data for 1992 subdivided into 30 cancer sites are presented in 8 tables, including age- and sex-specific absolute and percentage frequencies of cancer deaths, and crude, age-specific and age-standardized rates, at all ages and truncated for the 35-64 year age group. Male to female ratios have also been tabulated, and trends in age-standardized rates for major cancer sites plotted from 1955 to 1992. Results: Age-adjusted death certification rates (on the world standard population) for all neoplasms declined from 193.4 in 1991 to 189.8/100,000 males in 1992, and from 100.1 to 99.5/100,000 females. The favorable trends were even more marked in middle and younger age, but not in children below age 15, whose overall age-standardized cancer mortality rates were higher in 1992 than in 1989. Lung cancer was by far the leading site of cancer mortality, with over 30,700 deaths. For the fourth subsequent year, its rates in males declined, to reach 57.0/100,000, but continued to rise in females, to reach 8.0/100,000. Rates for other major cancer sites (intestines, stomach, female breast, prostate, pancreas) were stable or moderately favorable, but some increase was apparent also in 1992 for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma death rates. Conclusions: Italian cancer mortality rates in 1992 were moderately favorable, with the major exception of the persistent spread of the tobacco-related lung cancer epidemic in females.