Analyzing the evolution of young people's brain cancer mortality in Spanish provinces

To analyze the spatio-temporal evolution of brain cancer relative mortality risks in young population (under 20 years of age) in Spanish provinces during the period 1986-2010.

A new and flexible conditional autoregressive spatio-temporal model with two levels of spatial aggregation was used.

Brain cancer relative mortality risks in young population in Spanish provinces decreased during the last years, although a clear increase was observed during the 1990s. The global geographical pattern emphasized a high relative mortality risk in Navarre and a low relative mortality risk in Madrid. Although there is a specific Autonomous Region-time interaction effect on the relative mortality risks this effect is weak in the final estimates when compared to the global spatial and temporal effects.

Differences in mortality between regions and over time may be caused by the increase in survival rates, the differences in treatment or the availability of diagnostic tools. The increase in relative risks observed in the 1990s was probably due to improved diagnostics with computerized axial tomography and magnetic resonance imaging techniques.