Epidemiology and trend of stomach cancer mortality in Iran

Background and aims: Stomach cancer is one of the most common cancers and the second cause of deaths among cancers worldwide cancer in the world. This study aimed to estimate the rate and trend of death from stomach cancer in Iranian population between 2006 and 2010. Methods: This study was a cross-sectional conducted using mortality data in Iranian population between 2006 and 2010. The number of deaths, death rate, and sex ratio of mortality, mortality rates by age and gender groups, and trends of mortality from stomach cancer were calculated and reported. Cochrane Armitage test was used for linear trend by Winpepi software to study the trends of Stomach cancer mortality. Results: The results showed that between 2006 and 2010, 34950 cases of death have been reported from stomach cancer. The mortality rate per 100,000 reached from 11.22 in 2006 to 11.06 in 2010. All years studied indicated that death due to stomach cancer were higher in males than females. Also, with increasing age, the mortality rate of stomach cancer was increased. Conclusion: Our findings showed the decreasing trend of mortality due to stomach cancer may be due to increasing in lifespan and survival, enjoying the better diagnostic and therapeutic procedures for patients, and underestimation of the number of stomach cancer deaths. Since the cancer is the most frequent cause of death among cancers in Iran, additional investigation is necessary to determine the risk factors of the cancer to decline the mortality rate.