[Correlaton of mortality for lower urinary tract cancer and medical resource factor]

To compare mortality among different populations, the standardized mortality ratio (SMR) is usually used. This study is investigated the relationships between health care resources and mortality for lower urinary tract cancer.

Data for medical resource factors were obtained from annual reports published by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Japan. A Bayesian regression model was used to examine the relationships between SMR and these factors. The SMRs for prostate cancer and bladder cancer were calculated for the period from 2000 to 2002 and for 1990.

When the number of urological hospitals increased to 1 per 100,000 person in a region, the influence of the SMR for prostate cancer was - 3.0 - 0.5%, the male bladder cancer SMR was - 0.2 - 1.8% and the female bladder cancer SMR was - 2.6 - 0.8%. These findings were not significant.

The study shows that an appropriate distribution of urology resources is one of the factors contributing to a reduction in the mortality for urological cancer in a region. However, further increase of urological hospitals in a region exerts a limited beneficial influence on reducing the mortality.