[Recent changes in prostate cancer mortality in Chile. Trends analysis from 1955 to 2001].
BACKGROUND
By the year 2000, prostate cancer became the second leading cause of cancer death in Chilean men of all ages and is the leading cause of cancer deaths in men of eighty years of age or older.


OBJECTIVE
To analyze the trends in mortality rates from prostate cancer in Chile in a fifty years series, estimating the rate of increase of such rates and their changes in time.


METHODS
A trend analysis for age standardized mortality rates was performed, using join point regression analysis, which allows estimation of the annual percent change of rates and to find significant changes in such trend.


RESULTS
Age standardized mortality rates in Chile reached their peak value in 1996, becoming apparently stable from then on. Crude rates have had a steady increase during the whole period. The trends analysis identified three different periods in the growth of the age standardized rates: a first one of slot increase in rates between 1955 and 1981 (0.9% annual increase), a second one of more aggressive growth starting in 1981 (2.6% annual increase), and a third period starting in 1996, in which rates slowly decline at an annual rate of 1%.


CONCLUSIONS
The tendency of prostate cancer seen in Chile resembles that of industrialized countries, with an increase in its age standardized death rates that suffers a downturn by the end of the past decade. Besides early detection techniques, a substantial part of the reduction in mortality from prostate cancer could be explained by therapeutic improvements.
Departamento de Salud Pública, Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago Centro. alvives@med.puc.cl
Alejandra
A
Vives
Gonzalo
G
Valdivia
Guillermo
G
Marshall
D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002677:Chile / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality*; D012044:Regression Analysis