Malignant tumours in Mozambican Africans with special reference to primary liver carcinoma

The relative frequency of malignant disease as diagnosed by autopsy, biopsy or cytology in the Pathology Department, Central Hospital/Eduardo Mondlane University, Maputo, Mozambique, has been calculated for 1977 and compared with similar findings over the period 1956-70 (ICD codes 140-209). The figures relate to African patients mainly from the South Mozambican area. A decrease of relative frequency of primary liver carcinoma was observed in men (from over 50% to 35%) but not in women. Other malignancies tend to be constant over the years, in accordance with the general pattern of malignancies for most African countries south of the Sahara. No explanation for the decrease of primary liver carcinoma in men can be given, assuming an unchanging high incidence of viral hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and food contamination by aflatoxin. Curiously, the relative frequency figure for primary carcinoma of the liver in females shows no gross alterations in the 1956-77 period, fluctuating around 20%, which is about the same as the relative frequency of carcinoma of the uterine cervix.