[Cancer trends in hospital morbidity and lethality]

Describe trends in morbidity and lethality of cancer in University Hospital Joaquín Albarrán (La Habana, Cuba).

Carry out a temporal series studies of patients admitted from january 1999 to december 2005. We obtain information about admission, total and for cancer, deceased patients and lethality rates (deceased for cancer/admission for cancer x 100). From the 2005 admission we obtain age, sex, cause of admission, and if the diagnostic of cancer was doing during this admission or before.

Trend of cancer's admission have continuous increase during 1999-2005 period, with 3% of admission in 1999 to 7.99% in 2005. Lethality rates have an irregular behavior with smaller rate in 1999 (12.7%) and bigger in 2001 (27.86%). Internal Medicine service gave care to 60.71% of cancer admission, with less frequency in general surgery service (26.81%). 44% of patients were diagnosed during this admission, and 56% the diagnosis was doing in previous admission, of which 42.1% were admitted to treatment (surgical and drugs) and 53.5% for cancer complications.

We show a continuous increased trend in hospital cancer morbidity. It is a commit to modify healthcare's strategies of cancer patient addressed to guarantee the quality of services in front of the increased demand.