Mortality from prostate cancer in Italy: 1950-1979. Cross-sectional rates and cohort analysis.

This paper studies prostate cancer mortality in Italy from 1950-1979 to evaluate its importance in relation to total cancers, examine the time trend for forecasting future mortality trends, and makes an attempt to interpretate mortality by analyzing demographic and risk factors. In the Authors' opinion findings from cross-sectional rates, cohort analysis and Devesa-Schneiderman method, indicate that in Italy even if the age-adjusted mortality rate has nearly doubled over the period, as in many other countries, mortality can be expected to remain constant or decrease in the future, since the data to hand show a decreasing trend in some age cohorts.