[Cancer of the pancreas: an ecologic study]

The geographical pattern of mortality due to cancer of pancreas was evaluated in Spain for both sexes, calculating the standardized mortality ratios (SMR) for each province during the period 1975-1980. A multiple linear regression study with a group of environmental variables was carried out. The expenditure on food during the periods 1964-65, 1973-74 and 1980-81 (based on the family budget surveys from the National Institute of Statistics) its volume among these variables. As the most relevant finding, a positive association between death from pancreatic cancer and cheese consumption was observed for the three studied periods: 1964-65 (p less than 0.01 for both sexes), 1973-74 (p less than 0.01 in males) and 1980-81 (p less than 0.02 in males). The validity of these results is analyzed, and an assessment of these studies for the etiological investigation of disease, called ecological studies, is also made.