Epidemiologic study of patients with oesophageal cancer referring to the Babolsar Shahid Rajaii Radiotherapy Center

The south of littoral of Caspian sea is located on the Asian belt of oesophageal carcinoma, where has the highest incidence in the world. The objective of this study was to determine the epidemiologic aspects of patients with oesophageal carcinoma in the north of Iran. Based on the existing data of medical charts, we conducted a descriptive study of 668 patients with oesophageal carcinoma who referred to Shahid Rajaei Radiotherapy Center in Babolsar during 1993 to 1999. The data was included age, sex, occupation, residence area, and history of alcohol, smoking, drug consumption, anatomic location and histologic type of tumor. We used T-test and Chi-square test in statistical analysis. The mean (±SD) age of 668 patients was 62.8 (±11) years and the modal age group 60-69 years. The mean age of males was significantly greater than females (63.8 vs. 61.2 years, P<0.05) 54.5% of patients were male and 62.1% of males were farmers, 14.5% clerk, and 7% workers whereas 92.4% of females were housewives. Roughly, 0.7% of patients had a history of alcohol consumption, 19.3% smoker and 7.9% drug users and 50.3% of patients were residence of urban area. The most common histologic type of tumor was squamous cell carcinoma (91.3%) and 7% of tumors were adenocarcinoma. The ratio of men to women of adenocarcinoma was 3 to 1 Also squamous cell carcinoma was more common among men than women The relation between the histologic type of tumor and gender was significant (P<0.05). The most common location of squamous cell carcinoma was the upper third of oesophageal (47.1%) and for adenocarcinoma the lower third (86.4%). Also, we observed a significant relation between occupation and the histologic type of tumor. The results indicated that the frequency of oesophageal carcinoma is increased over the age 50 years. The relation of histologic type of tumor with location and gender are consistent with those reported in the other studies in the western countries, which shows the same pattern of epidemiologic aspects of this neoplasm in the world.