The melanoma epidemic debate: some evidence for a real phenomenon from Tuscany, Italy.

Our objective was to evaluate whether or not recent mortality data for the region of Tuscany confirm the hypothesis that an epidemic in the incidence of melanoma is an apparent phenomenon reflecting an overdiagnosis of indolent cases. We considered 1755 melanoma deaths in Tuscany in the period 1987-2003, and 2644 incidence cases of melanoma diagnosed in 1985-2003 in a subset of the same population. We calculated annual mortality and incidence trends using the National Cancer Institute's Joinpoint Program (version 2.

Lung cancer mortality patterns in women resident in different urbanization areas in central Italy from 1987-2002.

Aims And Background: The aim of the study was to evaluate mortality lung cancer trends, as an indicator of female smoking trends, in women resident in different urbanization areas.

Methods And Study Design: Data on the 5782 female lung cancer deaths that occurred in Tuscany, Italy, during the period 1987-2002 were analyzed, using age-period-cohort models by areas at different urbanization levels. Trends were examined with a log-linear regression model, calculating the yearly estimated percent change.