Cancer mortality in Romania, 1955-2004. Digestive sites: esophagus, stomach, colon and rectum, pancreas, liver, gallbladder and biliary tree.

Aim: Until recently, gastric cancer was the most frequent digestive neoplasia in our country. Our study presents the first synthesis of data regarding mortality rates from digestive cancers, for a period covering 50 years, in Romania.

Methods: Age-standardized mortality rates /100,000 population, general and/or per gender, concerning six digestive cancers, were identified from the statistics of IARC/OMS (Lyon, France) (years 1955-2002) and of the Ministry of Public Health (Bucharest, Romania) (year 2004).