[Mortality from cancer of the breast and the female genitalia in Aragón, 1975-1984]. / Mortalidad por cáncer de mama y del aparato genital femenino en Aragón, 1975-1984.

One out of four cancer deaths in women are due to breast cancer and female genital cancer. Mortality data are a basic information source to study disease characteristics in the population. A descriptive study on breast and female genital cancer mortality was carried out in Aragón covering the period 1975-84. Geographical differences and variations on mortality rates between the periods 1980-84 and 1975-79 have been studied. A mortality rate of 40.2 per 100,000 women per year has been observed for these tumours. Breast cancer accounted for 55% of these deaths. Reduction of mortality rate was seen for uterus non-specified between the periods 1980-84 and 1975-79, probably due to an improvement in quality of death certificates for uterus cancer. Higher mortality rates have been observed in the town of Zaragoza than in other parts of Aragón. This suggests the town of Zaragoza as priority in strategies of prevention and control programs.

[Incidence of cancer of the breast and the female genital system in the province of Zaragoza, 1975-1984]. / Incidencia del cáncer de mama y del aparato genital femenino en la provincia de Zaragoza, 1975-1984.

BACKGROUND: Cancer of the breast and female genital organs represents 40% of the tumors found in women. Registers of cancer on a population base constitutes a basic source of information for measuring the incidence of these tumors in the population. METHODS: The magnitude of cancer of the breast and female genital organs was analyzed in the province of Zaragoza during the period 1975-1984 according to the different geographic areas in the province. The rate of incidence, accumulated incidence and the rate of incidence adjusted by age were calculated. The source of information used was the Register of Cancer of Zaragoza. RESULTS: The rate of incidence observed for these tumors was found to be 84 per 100,000 women/year with breast cancer representing 58% of the cases. The truncated rates were higher than the rates of incidence except for the localization of other genital organs indicating a greater frequency of these tumors at intermediate ages. In Zaragoza, the capital city, an excess of incidence was found for most of the localizations studied. This may be explained by the existence of greater frequency of these tumors in urban areas. In the capital this excess was not observed for unspecified cancer of the uterus. This may be due to the greater precision of diagnosis in the capital than in the rest of the province because of the availability of health care centers. CONCLUSIONS: In the province of Zaragoza, cancer of the breast is most frequent than cancer of any of the other female genital organs. The greatest frequency of these neoplasms was found at an intermediate age. In Zaragoza city, a greater frequency of cancer was registered than in the rest of the province. These results are of interest for the proposal of programs for prevention and control.

[The hospital costs for patients with human immunodeficiency virus infection]. / Costes hospitalarios en pacientes con infección por el virus de la inmunodeficiencia humana.

BACKGROUND: The economic issues derived from the care of HIV patients are increasingly more important and they affect to different levels of sanitary assistance. In Spain these costs are not always evaluated and there is no information about the efficiency of inverted resources. METHODS: The cost of mean hospital stay due to HIV (+) patients has been estimated and compared with two infectious diseases: respiratory tuberculosis (TBC) and viral hepatitis (VH), and we have analyzed their evolution in the period studied. The study was conducted between July 1st 1987 and December 31st 1989 at the Infectious Unit for the three mentioned diseases. RESULTS: The 227 included patients originated 292 hospitalizations. The total cost derived from hospital stays was 169,466,323 ptas. The mean cost for HIV(+) patients was 576,184 ptas, for TBC patients 1,111,115 ptas, and for VH 443,219 ptas. The number of HIV(+) stays has increased each year. CONCLUSIONS: The observed results suggest that it could be interesting to think about new systems of inpatient care.