The Incidence of Malignant Tumors in Unselected Autopsy Material at Curacao, Netherlands West Indies

Abstract

It can be considered a well established fact that no human race and no vertebrate class is exempt from cancer. Though for many years it was believed that the cancer incidence in the native population of tropical countries was lower than that of the whites in general, we now know that this difference disappears almost completely when the same age groups are compared. Great differences in the site incidence of the tumors, however, remain. When the habits and manner of life of the populations and races for which cancer statistics are available are compared, some facts may perhaps be gleaned which will add to our knowledge of cancer. In this way statistical investigation is one of the methods of cancer research (Cramer, 1).

For the Negro population of the West Indies few statistics based on autopsy material exist. Weller (2) examined microscopic sections from 174 autopsies from Port au Prince, Haiti, and found 11 cases of malignancy with an average age of sixty-two years, a percentage of 6.2. He cites Choisser, who performed 700 autopsies at Haiti and found 27 deaths from malignancy, a percentage of 3.85. The same difficulties, however, are met in Haiti, with regard to mortality statistics, as in other tropical countries. As Bonne (3) has pointed out, the population of a general hospital in the tropics almost never represents an average sample of the population as a whole. The older age-groups especially are less well represented, which has a negative influence on the cancer incidence, and for this reason the records of these hospitals, though important, must be used with critical discernment.