Geographic patterns of renal cancer in the United States.

Mapping of the geographic distribution of renal cancer mortality for groupings of U.S. counties revealed clustering of elevated rates among white males and females in the upper north-central part of the country. Throughout the United States, mortality increased with urbanization for males only, whereas rates for both sexes showed positive correlations with socioeconomic status. The major correlate of the cancer rates was ethnicity. Mortality was elevated in counties with high percentages of residents of German, Scandinavian, and especially Russian descent. Ethnic susceptibility appears to account, at least partly, for the regional clustering of kidney cancer and may provide leads to environmental determinants.