title: [Cancer of the Japanese, from the view point of epidemiology].
abstract: Cancer death has been increasing in Japan since around 1950 and have become the leading cause of death since 1981. The main reason for the increase of cancer deaths seems to be largely due to the increase of the aged population. The major cancers of the Japanese, as estimated from the vital statistics data and the cancer registry data, are cancers of the stomach, cervix, lung, esophagus, liver and biliary tract etc. A marked change in the trend in the site-specific cancer death rate and incidence rate has been observed in the past; decrease of mortality and incidence rates for cancers of the stomach, cervix, liver (females), esophagus (females) and increase of the rates for other cancers, especially cancers of the lung and large intestine. The pattern of cancer of the Japanese is becoming similar to that of Western countries, probably due in part to westernization of the life style, food habits, tobacco consumption etc. The future trend in the cancer death rate in Japan was estimated statistically. It was predicted that death rates for lung cancer and cancer of the large intestine would show a marked increase in the future in Japan and the need of effective counter-measures for those increasing cancers has been emphasized.
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality; D005260:Female; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality; D011336:Probability; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality; D014594:Uterine Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality