[Cancer mortality in urban-industrial area of the Baixada Santista, Sao Paulo, (Brazil)].
BACKGROUND
In order to study the relationship between cancer and industrialization the cancer mortality in the an urban area (Baixada Santista, Brazil), an important industrial-harbour complex, two distinct groups: industrialized and non-industrialized, is analyzed.


METHODS
A total of 8,546 cancer death registers (according to ICD-9) in males over 10 years old, resident in the that area, were obtained from "Fundação Sistema Estadual de Análise de Dados (SEADE)", during the period 1980-1993. The average mortality rates, standardized on the basis of the to 1960 world population for the area studied, and their strata: Stratum I (inside the industrial area - Santos, S. Vicente, Cubatão and Guarujá) and Stratum II (outside the industrial area - Praia Grande, Mongaguá, Itanhaém and Peruíbe) and the ratios among these rates were calculated adopting the 95% confidence interval.


RESULTS
The annual average mortality rate was high, 197.9/100,000 and there was a statistically significant difference between the mortality rates observed in Stratum I and those in Stratum II, 209.2 and 146.7/100,000, respectively, with a ratio of 1.42 (CI 1.36 - 1.51).


CONCLUSIONS
It seems that environmental and occupational exposure to carcinogenic chemical agents, related to the productive process in the industrial complex, is a significant factor in mortality due to cancer.
Faria
M d
Md
Departamento de Medicina Legal, Etica Médica e Medicina Social e do Trabalho da Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brasil. ceiof@uol.com.br
Almeida
J W
JW
Zanetta
D M
DM
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality*; D016273:Occupational Exposure; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data