Cancer in Poland

As in other European countries, cancer is the second most frequent cause of death in Poland. Estimates say that some 100,000 Poles will have developed various cancers every year by the end of the 1980s. The number of cancer-related deaths reached 71,509 by 1989. The constantly growing number of new cases and deaths from cancer is one of the most characteristic features of malignant neoplasms in Poland. The recent decades have seen major changes in the structure of cancer in Poland. This is true for both sexes. By the end of the 1980s, the predominating neoplastic disease in men was cancer of the lung. It was the cause of 34.3% of cancer-related deaths in 1989. In women, malignant neoplasms of the breast, large bowel, and stomach represent about 33% of all cancer localizations. Geographic distribution of mortality ascribed to cancer shows an east-west pattern. This is true particularly for such cancer sites as the large bowel, gall bladder, pancreas, uterine cervix, urinary bladder, breast, ovary; it seems to have a clear connection with the geographic pattern of urbanization in Poland.