Mortality trend of gallbladder cancer in Araucanía Region, Chile, 2004-2014

Chile has the highest mortality rate for gallbladder cancer in the Andean region. The areas most affected by this cancer are found in southern Chile.

To describe the mortality rate trends for gallbladder cancer in the Araucanía region between 2004 and 2014.

Ecological observational descriptive study. The cases were identified by the codes ICD-10: C-23. The population at risk was obtained from the projections of the National Institute of Statistics of Chile. The mortality rate was modeled using the Poisson regression method, including age, time, and interaction between the two variables. The annual percentage change (APC) was used as a summary measure.

In 2014, the Araucanía region had a standardized mortality rate of 10.36 per 100,000 inhabitants, while in the country it was 6.13 per 100,000. At the country level, the temporal evolution of mortality due to gallbladder cancer presented an annual percentage change of 9.1% (incidence rate ratio = 0.91 p-value <0.05), while in Araucanía the decrease was 7 % (incidence rate ratio = 0.93 p-value= 0.16), which is not statistically significant. The mortality rate was 2.68 times higher in women than in Araucanía men (p-value <0.05), a result similar to that of the country. At the national level, the trend according to age group shows a decrease for all groups, being the one of greater magnitude in those people from 45 to 54 years with an annual percent change of -5.36%, these results are not observed in the Araucanía.

Mortality from gallbladder cancer shows a decreasing trend in the period studied for the whole country; however, this is not so for the Araucanía region, which maintains a higher mortality rate than that of the country.