title: Biphasic Gompertzian malignant melanoma mortality rate dynamics: a manifestation of population genetic heterogeneity.
abstract: The Gompertz equation describes an exponential relationship between mortality and ageing. However, mortality in animal and human populations does not increase exponentially at older ages. Age-specific malignant melanoma mortality rate distributions in the white population of the United States from 1979 to 1989 displayed two distinct Gompertzian slopes; one between age 15 and 35 years, and a second between age 45 and 85 years. Rather than indicating a "biological' limitation of the Gompertz law, multiphasic and upper age boundaries to Gompertzian mortality rate dynamics are a mathematical requirement in genetically heterogeneous populations.
authors.affiliation: West Virginia University School of Medicine, Morgantown, USA.
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Riggs
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000818:Animals; D001699:Biometry; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008545:Melanoma / Q000401:mortality*; D008875:Middle Aged; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology