title: Increasing multiple myeloma mortality among the elderly: a manifestation of aging and differential survival.
abstract: Increasing multiple myeloma incidence and mortality among the elderly in industrialized nations has been attributed to associated environmental carcinogens. Age-specific multiple myeloma mortality rates in the United States from 1968 to 1989 were analyzed using the Strehler-Mildvan modification of the Gompertz relationship between aging and mortality. The results suggest that worsening environmental influences are not responsible for increasing multiple myeloma mortality among the elderly. Differential survival, a concept originally popularized by Charles Darwin, and its effect upon the surviving gene pool in an aging population is an alternative explanation for increasing multiple myeloma incidence and mortality in the elderly.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, West Virginia University School of Medicine, Morgantown 26506-9180, USA.
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Riggs
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009101:Multiple Myeloma / Q000401:mortality*; D016019:Survival Analysis; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology