Cancer patterns in Israel: selected aspects.

Data on cancer incidence in Israel have been collected by the Israel Cancer Registry since 1960. Overall incidence patterns are similar to those observed in other "Westernized" countries. In the total Jewish population, lung cancer accounts for one in seven cancers in males and breast cancer, for one in four cancers in females. The main time trends are: a decrease in stomach cancer, a halt in the increase of male lung cancer and a continuing rise for female lung cancer, female breast cancer, cancer of the colon and rectum, and malignant melanoma. Cancer of the uterine cervix may be on the rise in Israel-born women. The relatively high incidence of cancer of the esophagus in immigrants from Iran and Yemen and of cancer of the nasopharynx in immigrants from North Africa probably reflect incidence patterns in their countries of origin.