INCIDENCE OF GANGER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 39, 12 January 1945, Page 3

INCIDENCE OF GANGER

DOMINION'S DEATH RATE

Cancer is responsible annually for more deaths in New Zealand than can. be assigned to any cause other than diseases of the heart. In 1942, the latest year recorded there, were 2029 deal lis from cancer in the Dominion—a proportion of 1313 per 10,000 of the population.

One factor contributing towards the recorded increase in deaths from cancer says the latest edition of the New Zealand Official Year Book was the increasing proportion of persons reaching the ages -where cancer largely claimed its, victims. That position had been brought about principally by the gradual I amelioration of the one-time of certain epidemic, diseases, which had exacted a heavy toll of human life at. the earlier ages. ' Tuberculosis it was stated, might perhaps be classified in the group mentioned as the progressive decline in the death-rate from that disease for many years was practically uniform with the rise in the cancel death-rate. The. standardised cancer deathrate in 1942 showed a decrease of 0.19, and the recorded death-rate 3j decrease of 0.05 per 10,000 as compared with the previous year. Ninety-three per cent, of deaths from cancer during 194.2 were at ages of 45 years and upwards, and 52 per cent, from the age of 53 and up wads. There has been little movement in the. standardised cancer death-rate for persons under (55 years of age. For persons over that age, however, the standardised death-rate increased fairly rapidly in the earlier years of the Dominion's history, and reached its maximum in the quinquennium 192(j-30 j at about the time, when the age constitution of the population ol' New Zealand for the first, time approximated that ol the older countries of Europe. The ligures suggest, it is pointed out that cancer, while undoubtedly increasing in numerical incidence is not doing so out of proportion to the population exposed to the. cancer risk. improvements in diagnosis have alst> been responsible for part of the numerical increase in the recorded 'increase from deaths from that cause, but that factor had probably become more stabilised in recent years.