International Journal of Public Health

, Volume 62, Issue 3, pp 407–414 | Cite as

Cancer time trend in a population following a socio-economic transition: results of age-period-cohort analysis

  • Giovanni Mario Pes
  • Federica Cocco
  • Stefano Bibbò
  • Giuseppina Marras
  • Maria Pina Dore
Original Article
First Online:
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:

Abstract

Objectives

To examine cancer trend using age-period-cohort analysis with a cohort of patients in Sardinia, Italy, where epidemiological transition occurred between 1950 and 1960.

Methods

Poisson log-linear regression models were used to analyze time trend in patients undergoing upper endoscopy between 1995 and 2013.

Results

A total of 10,546 clinical records (62.2% women) were retrieved. In 541 patients (5.1%), a diagnosis of cancer was reported, more often in men (5.5%) than in women (4.9%). Age and birth cohort were significantly associated with cancer rate according to age-period-cohort analysis (p < 0.0001), whereas the effect of time period was negligible (p = 0.875). An upward trend for all cancers was observed in the younger generations (7.15% before 1950, 8.85% between 1950 and 1960, and 10.7% after 1960).

Conclusions

Population aging and increased exposure to cancer risk factors after epidemiological transition were the major determinants associated with cancer in this Sardinian cohort, whereas time period had no effect, ruling out any variation in diagnostic accuracy. These results may facilitate the provision of preventive measures by the health care system, and improve population-tailored cancer screening strategies.

Keywords

Cancer prevalence Age-period-cohort analysis Epidemiological transition Sardinia 
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Notes

Author contributions

GMP and MPD designed the study and wrote the manuscript; MPD and SB collected the medical history and obtained the informed consents, FC and GM recorded the data; GMP and MPD analyzed the data and critically reviewed the manuscript.

Compliance with ethical standards

Conflict of interest

None disclosed.

Supplementary material

38_2017_946_MOESM1_ESM.docx (55 kb)
Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 54 KB)

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Copyright information

© Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+) 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica e SperimentaleUniversity of SassariSassariItaly
  2. 2.National Institute of Biostructures and Biosystems (INBB)University of SassariSassariItaly
  3. 3.Baylor College of MedicineMichael E. DeBakey VAMCHoustonUSA

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