Trends in Mortality From Cancer, With Special Reference to Gastric Cancer in Iceland

• Published in: JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute
• Main Author: Sigurjonsson, Julius
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press 1966
• Subjects: Articles; Iceland
• Online Access: http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/36/5/899; https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/36.5.899

Revised statistics on cancer mortality in Iceland, back to 1921, were obtained by examination of all individual death records, with the cancer deaths recoded according to the Seventh Revision of the International Classification of Diseases after cases of incomplete site specification were checked against annual lists of cancer patients. These lists were compiled by the district physicians, beginning with 1932. Further information was sought on all cases of cancer of the ventricle occurring from 1938-60. The records indicated that stomach cancer had not been overdiagnosed to any noteworthy extent. No real increase was found in the over-all mortality from cancer during the period under investigation, the increase in standardized rates being explainable by underreporting of old people in the earlier decades. The mortality from gastric cancer is still unusually high in Iceland, though a definite downward trend has been observed in recent years. While the standardized rates for gastric cancer in both sexes are appreciably lower than those in japan and Chile, the rate for males is higher than in any other country in Western Europe and the rate For Females is matched only by those rates for females in Finland and Austria.