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Past analyses of mortality data from mesothelioma relied on unspecific codes, such as pleural neoplasms. We calculated temporal trends in age-specific mortality rates in Canada, the United States, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom, and Australia on the basis of the 10th version of the International Classification of Diseases, which includes a specific code for mesothelioma. Older age groups showed an increase (in the United States, a weaker decrease) during the study period, whereas in young age groups, there was a decrease (in Poland, a weaker increase, starting, however, from low rates). Results were consistent between men and women and between pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma, although a smaller number of events in women and for peritoneal mesothelioma resulted in less precise results. The results show the heterogeneous effect of the reduction of asbestos exposure on different age groups; decreasing mortality in young people reflects reduced exposure opportunity, and increasing mortality in the elderly shows the long-term effect of early exposures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) have proposed eight recommendations for cancer prevention, related to body fatness, diet, and physical activity. Our aim is to evaluate the role of adherence to these recommendations on head and neck cancers risk.Materials and Methods: We obtained an overall score including seven of the WCRF/AICR recommendations, and examined its relationship with head and neck cancers risk in two Italian case-control studies including 946 patients with oral cavity and pharyngeal (OCP) cancer and 2492 controls, and 689 patients with laryngeal cancer and 1605 controls.Results: Higher adherence to WCRF/AICR recommendations was associated to a reduced risk of OCP cancer (odds ratio, OR=0.45, 95% confidence interval, CI: 0.33-0.62 for a score of 4-<5, and OR=0.32, 95% CI: 0.22-0.49 for a score of ⩾5 as compared to <3). The ORs for laryngeal cancer were 0.68 (95% CI: 0.50-0.92) for a score of 3-<4, 0.39 (95% CI: 0.28-0.55) for a score of 4-<5, and 0.24 (95% CI: 0.15-0.38) for a score of ⩾5.Conclusion: Our study indicates that high adherence to the WCRF/AICR recommendations for cancer prevention is associated with a substantially decreased risk of head and neck cancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Comparing cancer mortality and associated risk factors among immigrant populations in a host country to those in their country of origin reveals disparities in cancer risk, access to care, diagnosis, and disease management. This study compares cancer mortality between the German resident population and Germany-born individuals who migrated to the US., Methods: Cancer mortality data from 2008-2018 were derived for Germans from the World Health Organization database and for Germany-born Americans resident in four states (California, Florida, Massachusetts, and New York) from respective Departments of Vital Statistics. We calculated age-standardized mortality rates (ASMRs) using the European standard population and standardized mortality ratios (SMR) compared to the German resident population along with 95% confidence intervals (CIs)., Results: Germany-born American males had lower ASMRs (253.8 per 100,000) than German resident population (325.6 per 100,000). The difference in females was modest, with ASMRs of 200.7 and 203.7 per 100,000, respectively. For all cancers, Germany-born American males had an SMR of 0.72 (95% CI: 0.70-0.74) and females 0.98 (95% CI: 0.95-1.00). Male SMRs among Germany-born Americans were significantly below one for oral cavity, stomach, colorectal, liver, lung, prostate, and kidney cancer. Among females, SMRs were below one for oral cavity, stomach, colorectal, gallbladder, breast, cervix uteri, and kidney cancer. For both sexes, SMRs were over one for bladder cancer (1.14 for males, 1.21 for females). Mortality was higher for lung cancer (SMR: 1.68), non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (1.18) and uterine cancer (1.22) among Germany-born American females compared to the German resident population., Conclusion: Germany-born American males but not females showed lower cancer mortality than German resident population. Disparities may stem from variations in risk factors (e.g., smoking and alcohol use) as well as differences in screening practices and participation, cancer treatment, besides some residual potential "healthy immigrant effect"., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest All authors have declared no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Background and Objective: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) incidence, prevalence, mortality and socioeconomic burden are considerable and vary across countries. The aim of the present study was to update the analysis of COPD mortality worldwide using data from the World Health Organization (WHO) up to 2019., Methods: We obtained COPD mortality and population data for 22 European countries and the European Union (EU) as a whole, 10 American countries and six other countries from the WHO mortality database. We calculated age-standardized mortality rates in both sexes and examined trends by country with joinpoint analysis between 1994 and 2019., Results: Between 2005-2007 and 2015-2017, overall COPD mortality decreased in EU men (-16.3%) but increased in women (12.7%) to reach rates of 14.0/100,000 in men and of 6.4/100,000 in women. In the United States, mortality declined in men to 21.3/100,000 but rose in women to 18.3/100,000. Mortality declined in most Latin American countries and all Asian countries, while an increase in Australian women was observed., Conclusion: A steady decrease in COPD mortality was observed in most of countries for men, whilst a different trend was observed in women in several countries. These trends are largely explained by changes in smoking habits, with an additional contribution of air pollution and occupational exposures. Despite past and ongoing tobacco control initiatives, this condition still remains a leading cause of death, in particular in countries with lower socio-demographic indices., (© 2022 Asian Pacific Society of Respirology.)

To explore the role of coffee on health outcomes in the United States, where coffee consumption is common, we conducted a meta-analysis of prospective studies investigating the magnitude (any compared with no consumption) and the dose-response shape (cups per day) of the associations between caffeinated coffee consumption and incidence/mortality of cardiovascular disease (CVD), as well as incidence of type 2 diabetes (T2D), hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), endometrial cancer, melanoma, and nonmelanoma skin cancer. We selected the desirable health outcomes that have been shown to be positively associated with coffee consumption. Studies were identified by searching PubMed/Embase databases up to September 2019. Inclusion criteria included prospective studies that investigated the relation of ≥3 categories of caffeinated coffee consumption and the outcomes of interest. Twenty-six studies (42 distinct cohorts), with 93,706 cases/deaths and 3,713,932 participants, met the inclusion criteria. In any coffee consumers, there was a significant inverse association with the risk of CVD (RR = 0.90; 95% CI: 0.84, 0.96), T2D (RR = 0.90; 95% CI: 0.85, 0.96), endometrial cancer (RR = 0.85; 95% CI: 0.78, 0.92), melanoma (RR = 0.89; 95% CI: 0.80, 0.99), and nonmelanoma skin cancer (RR = 0.92; 95% CI: 0.89, 0.95). Coffee consumption was also inversely associated with HCC (RR = 0.93; 95% CI: 0.80, 1.08), without reaching statistical significance. The dose-response relation was nonlinear uniquely for CVD (P-nonlinearity = 0.01). In particular, the largest risk reduction was observed for 3-4 cups/d (∼120 mL/cup) and no reduction thereafter. For other outcomes, the risk decreased linearly over the whole coffee consumption range. Current patterns of consumption in the United States would account for a fraction of avoided cases/deaths ranging from 6% to 12% according to the outcome considered. This study confirms the beneficial health effects of caffeinated coffee consumption in the US population on the health outcomes considered, and quantifies their possible magnitude., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Society for Nutrition.)

To provide an up-to-date overview of recent trends in mortality from oral and pharyngeal cancer, we analyzed death certification data for 61 countries worldwide provided by the World Health Organization in 2010-2015, and, for selected most populous countries, over the period 1970-2016. For 12 largest countries, we analyzed incidence derived from Cancer Incidence in Five Continents in 1960-2012 for all oral and pharyngeal cancers and by subsites. In 2015, male age-standardized (world population) death rates per 100,000 were 5.03 in the European Union (EU), 8.33 in the Russian Federation, 2.53 in the United States (USA), and 3.04 in Japan; corresponding rates in women were 1.23, 1.23, 0.82, and 0.76. Male mortality decreased over the last decades in several European countries, with earlier and sharper declines in southern Europe; conversely, mortality was still increasing in a few eastern European countries and the United Kingdom. Mortality in men also decreased in Argentina, Australia, and Hong Kong, while it leveled off over more recent calendar years in Brazil, Japan, Mexico, the Republic of Korea, as well as in Australia and the USA. Female mortality slightly rose in various European countries. Overall incidence trends in the largest countries were broadly consistent with mortality ones, but oropharyngeal cancer incidence rose in many countries. Changes in tobacco and alcohol exposure in men over the last decades likely explain the favorable trends in oral and pharyngeal cancer mortality and incidence observed in selected countries worldwide, while increased human papillomavirus infection is likely responsible for the rise in oropharyngeal cancer incidence., (© 2020 UICC.)

Objective: To illustrate trends in sex ratios in epithelial cancer mortality in the EU, USA, and Japan, with a focus on age-specific and cohort patterns., Methods: We obtained certified deaths and resident populations from the World Health Organisation for the period of 1970-2014 for the USA, Japan, and the EU for 12 epithelial cancer sites. From these, we calculated both the age-specific and age-standardised male-to-female mortality sex ratios. We applied an age-period-cohort model to the sex ratios in order to disentangle the effects of age, period of death, and birth cohort., Results: Age-standardised mortality sex ratios were found to be unfavourable to males, apart from thyroid cancer. The highest standardised rates were in laryngeal cancer: 7·7 in the 1970s in the USA, 17·4 in the 1980s in the EU, and 16·8 in the 2000s in Japan. Cohort patterns likely to be due to excess smoking (1890 cohort) and drinking (1940 cohort) in men were identified in the USA, and were present but less defined in the EU and Japan for the oral cavity, oesophagus, liver, pancreas, larynx, lung, bladder, and kidney., Conclusion: Mortality sex ratio patterns are partly explained by the differences in exposure to known and avoidable risk factors. These are mostly tobacco, alcohol, and obesity/overweight, as well as other lifestyle-related factors., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

The World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research (WCRF/AICR) introduced in 2007, and updated in 2018, nutrition-related recommendations for cancer prevention. Previous studies generally reported inverse associations of breast cancer with the 2007 recommendations, while no study has yet evaluated the association with the 2018 guidelines. We investigated the association between adherence to the 2018 WCRF/AICR recommendations and breast cancer risk in a case-control study from Italy and Switzerland (1991-2008) including 3034 incident histologically-confirmed breast cancer cases and 3392 hospital controls. Adherence to the 2018 guidelines was summarized through a score incorporating eight recommendations (body fatness, physical activity, consumption of wholegrains/vegetables/fruit/beans, "fast foods" and other processed foods high in fat, starches, or sugars, red/processed meat, sugar-sweetened drinks, alcohol, breastfeeding), with higher scores indicating higher adherence. Odds ratios (OR) were estimated using multiple logistic regression models. We also conducted a meta-analysis including 15 additional studies using random-effects models. In our case-control study, adherence to the 2018 WCRF/AICR guidelines was inversely associated with breast cancer, with ORs of 0.60 (95% confidence interval (CI), 0.51-0.70) for a score ≥5.5 vs. ≤4.25, and of 0.83 (95% CI, 0.79-0.88) for a 1-point increment. In our study, 25% of breast cancers were attributable to low-to-moderate guideline adherence. In the meta-analysis, the pooled relative risks (RRs) were 0.73 (95% CI, 0.65-0.82, p heterogeneity among studies< 0.001) for the highest vs. the lowest WCRF/AICR score category, and 0.91 (95% CI, 0.88-0.94, p heterogeneity < 0.001) for a 1-point increment. This work provides quantitative evidence that higher adherence to the WCRF/AICR recommendations reduces the risk of breast cancer, thus opening perspectives for prevention., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Background: The etiology of male breast cancer is poorly understood, partly due to its relative rarity. Although tobacco and alcohol exposures are known carcinogens, their association with male breast cancer risk remains ill-defined., Methods: The Male Breast Cancer Pooling Project consortium provided 2,378 cases and 51,959 controls for analysis from 10 case-control and 10 cohort studies. Individual participant data were harmonized and pooled. Unconditional logistic regression was used to estimate study design-specific (case-control/cohort) ORs and 95% confidence intervals (CI), which were then combined using fixed-effects meta-analysis., Results: Cigarette smoking status, smoking pack-years, duration, intensity, and age at initiation were not associated with male breast cancer risk. Relations with cigar and pipe smoking, tobacco chewing, and snuff use were also null. Recent alcohol consumption and average grams of alcohol consumed per day were also not associated with risk; only one subanalysis of very high recent alcohol consumption (>60 g/day) was tentatively associated with male breast cancer (ORunexposed referent = 1.29; 95% CI, 0.97-1.71; OR>0-<7 g/day referent = 1.36; 95% CI, 1.04-1.77). Specific alcoholic beverage types were not associated with male breast cancer. Relations were not altered when stratified by age or body mass index., Conclusions: In this analysis of the Male Breast Cancer Pooling Project, we found little evidence that tobacco and alcohol exposures were associated with risk of male breast cancer., Impact: Tobacco and alcohol do not appear to be carcinogenic for male breast cancer. Future studies should aim to assess these exposures in relation to subtypes of male breast cancer., (©2014 American Association for Cancer Research.)

Gastric cancer incidence and mortality decreased substantially over the last decades in most countries worldwide, with differences in the trends and distribution of the main topographies across regions. To monitor recent mortality trends (1980-2011) and to compute short-term predictions (2015) of gastric cancer mortality in selected countries worldwide, we analysed mortality data provided by the World Health Organization. We also analysed incidence of cardia and non-cardia cancers using data from Cancer Incidence in Five Continents (2003-2007). The joinpoint regression over the most recent calendar periods gave estimated annual percent changes (EAPC) around -3% for the European Union (EU) and major European countries, as well as in Japan and Korea, and around -2% in North America and major Latin American countries. In the United States of America (USA), EU and other major countries worldwide, the EAPC, however, were lower than in previous years. The predictions for 2015 show that a levelling off of rates is expected in the USA and a few other countries. The relative contribution of cardia and non-cardia gastric cancers to the overall number of cases varies widely, with a generally higher proportion of cardia cancers in countries with lower gastric cancer incidence and mortality rates (e.g. the USA, Canada and Denmark). Despite the favourable mortality trends worldwide, in some countries the declines are becoming less marked. There still is the need to control Helicobacter pylori infection and other risk factors, as well as to improve diagnosis and management, to further reduce the burden of gastric cancer., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Until the mid-1990s, gastric cancer has been the first cause of cancer death worldwide, although rates had been declining for several decades and gastric cancer has become a relatively rare cancer in North America and in most Northern and Western Europe, but not in Eastern Europe, Russia and selected areas of Central and South America or East Asia. We analyzed gastric cancer mortality in Europe and other areas of the world from 1980 to 2005 using joinpoint regression analysis, and provided updated site-specific incidence rates from 51 selected registries. Over the last decade, the annual percent change (APC) in mortality rate was around -3, -4% for the major European countries. The APC were similar for the Republic of Korea (APC = -4.3%), Australia (-3.7%), the USA (-3.6%), Japan (-3.5%), Ukraine (-3%) and the Russian Federation (-2.8%). In Latin America, the decline was less marked, but constant with APC around -1.6% in Chile and Brazil, -2.3% in Argentina and Mexico and -2.6% in Colombia. Cancers in the fundus and pylorus are more common in high incidence and mortality areas and have been declining more than cardia gastric cancer. Steady downward trends persist in gastric cancer mortality worldwide even in middle aged population, and hence further appreciable declines are likely in the near future.

Objective: To update trends in mortality from coronary heart diseases (CHD) and cerebrovascular diseases (CVD) over the period 1981-2004 in Europe, the USA, Latin America, Japan and other selected areas of the world., Methods: Age-standardized mortality rates were derived from the World Health Organization database. Joinpoint analysis was used to identify significant changes in trends., Results: In the European Union (27 countries), CHD mortality in men declined from 139/100,000 in 1985-1989 to 93/100,000 in 2000-2004 (-33%). In women, the fall was from 61/100,000 to 44/100,000 (-27%). In this area, a decline by over 30% was also registered in CVD mortality for both sexes. In the Russian Federation and other countries of the former Soviet Union, CHD rates in 2000-2004 were exceedingly high, around 380/100,000 men and 170/100,000 women in Russia, 430 for men and 240 for women in Ukraine, 420 and 200 in Belarus. For CVD, a similar situation was registered, with mortality rates of 226/100,000 for men and 159/100,000 for women in 2004 in the Russian Federation, and more than 24% increase since the late 1980s for men and 15% for women. CHD and CVD mortality continued to decline in most Latin American countries, Australia and other areas considered, including Asia (even if with marked differences)., Conclusion: Although mortality from CHD and CVD continues to decline in several areas of the world including most countries of Europe and of the America providing data and Australia, unfavourable trends were still observed in the Russian Federation and other countries of the former Soviet Union, whose recent rates remain exceedingly high.

Background: Testicular cancer is generally curable if appropriate treatment is given. Data and statistics on testicular cancer mortality over the last decades are available from the US and Canada, but are more difficult to find, in a standard and comparable format, for Central and South American countries. The objective of the study was to compare death rates and trends over the 1980-2003 period in all the American countries that provide data., Methods: Overall and 20 to 44 years age-standardized (world population) mortality rates from testicular cancer, derived from the World Health Organization (WHO) database, are presented for the most recent available calendar years in 10 American countries. Trends in mortality for selected countries of the Americas are also given over the period 1980-2003., Results: In the early 1980s the highest testicular cancer mortality rates were observed in Chile (1.7/100,000 at all ages, 3.6/100,000 at 20-44 years) and Argentina (0.9/100,000 at all ages, 1.7/100,000 at 20-44 years), as compared with 0.4/100,000 for all ages and 0.6/100,000 at 20 to 44 years in Canada, and 0.3/100,000 for all ages and 0.7/100,000 at 20 to 44 years in the US. In 2001-2003, testicular cancer mortality had fallen to 0.2/100,000 in men aged 20 to 44 years in Canada, and to 0.4/100,000 in the US. Conversely, rates were still 1.6/100,000 in Argentina, 2.2/100,000 in Chile and 1.2/100,000 in Mexico, and were around 0.5-0.6/100,000 in most other Latin American countries that provide data., Conclusions: Mortality from testicular cancer in (young) men remains exceedingly high in most Latin American countries. Urgent intervention is required to provide treatment (essentially modern integrated platinum-based chemotherapy) for this largely curable neoplasm in young men.

Background: We have considered trends in mortality from benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) over the last decades in Europe and, for comparative purposes, the USA and Japan., Methods: Cancer death certification data for benign prostatic hyperplasia were derived from the World Health Organisation database., Results: Between the early 1950s and the late 1990s, overall mortality from BPH in the European Union (EU) fell from 5.9 to 3.5 per million, and the decline since the late 1950s was over 96%. Comparable falls were observed in the USA and Japan, and BPH mortality rates in the late 1990s were lower than in the EU (1.8/10(6) in the USA, 1.4 in Japan). BPH mortality trends were downwards also in the Eastern Europe, although rates in the late 1990s were about fourfold higher than in the EU., Conclusion: BPH rates have been steadily declining in developed countries. The excess BPH mortality in Eastern Europe indicates the scope for further reduction too., (Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.)

Trends in death certification rates from non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHL) were analyzed on the basis of the World Health Organization database over the period 1969-1998. Until the late 1970s, mortality from NHL was similar in the European Union (EU), the USA and Japan, i.e. around 3/100,000 males and 2/100,000 females. Over the last two decades, NHL mortality in the EU rose to 4.4/100,000 males and 2.8/100,000 females. Upward trends were greater in the USA, whose rates approached 6/100,000 males and 4/100,000 females in the late 1990s, and were observed in Japan, too.

Mortality from testicular cancer has been declining in the USA since the 1970's and in western Europe since the late 1970's, and the rates in the late 1990's were about 70% lower than in the 1970's. In Eastern Europe, however, some decline was observed only since the late 1980's and was substantially smaller (only approximately 20%). Consequently, a few hundred avoidable deaths from a curable neoplasm, mainly of young adults, are still registered in Eastern Europe. This underlines the urgency of implementation of available and effective therapeutic schemes for testicular cancer in Eastern Europe.