[Mortality in malignant brain tumors in Yugoslavia]

Malignant tumours of head and neck, as a common group of diseases, is mentioned in Yugoslavia for the first time in 1972, where as the american authors have been studying this group of diseases as a whole since 1954 (1969). The data about death persons of malignant brain tumours (codes 191), of all causes of death (codes 000-999), of defined death causes of all the neoplasms (codes 140-209) and neoplasms of head and necks (codes 140-149, 160-161, 190-193), according to the eighth and ninth Revision of the International Classification of Diseases, Lesions and Death Causes, are based on official data of the Institute of Statistics of Yugoslavia for the period 1969-1988 (1988). In the analysis of mortality were used the standardized death rates according to the method of direct standardization after the world population by Segi (1976), further specific death rates according to sex and age, proportions and linear trend (1983). The results of these researches have shown that in the period from 1969 to 1988 there were recorded in Yugoslavia 13687 dead of malignant brain tumours in all. The average standardized mortality rate was 2.94 per 100,000 inhabitants; it is higher in men (3.59), than in women (2.40). On the basis of the results of linear trend it is shown that the average standardized rates of total mortality are increasing (y = 2.94 + 0.16x); it is in the males y = 3.59 + 0.23x, in females y = 2.40 + 0.12x. Age specific mortality rates are the highest in the group 55-64 years (10.37%). In this group the risk of dying is much greater in the males (13.63%), than in the females (7.85%).