[Carcinoma of the uterus in the Austrian mortality statistics. I. Carcinoma of the uterus in Viennese autopsy reports 1976 (author's transl)].

The official mortality statistics in Austria fail to report the localization of uterine cancer in nearly two thirds of cases and, thus, the annual death rate of women with cervical versus endometrial cancer is not clear. These two diseases behave totally differently with regard to their aetiology, age distribution, early diagnosis, therapy and prognosis and, therefore, a separate analysis is necessary. This study presents an analysis of the incidence of uterine cancer in a series of 7,276 women who died in Vienna hospitals in 1976. Of the 151 cases (2% of all the women in the examined collective) 109 died of cervical carcinoma, 33 of endometrial carcinoma and 9 of unspecified uterine carcinoma. The average age of women who died of cervical carcinomas was 60 years, whilst that of patients with endometrial carcinoma was 71.7 years. In 12.6% of cases double carcinomata were found. The relation between deaths from cervical carcinoma to endometrial carcinoma is 3.3:1. If this ratio is applied to the 942 deaths from uterine carcinoma in 1976 in Austria, then one can estimate that more than 700 women must have died of cervical carcinoma and more than 200 of endometrial carcinoma. The 303 deaths from cervical carcinoma and 65 from endometrial carcinoma reported in the official mortality statistics are, therefore, totally misleading and ought not to be used as a basis for epidemiological investigations.