Mortality from esophageal cancer in Piedmont, Italy

Piedmont is located at the borderline between Italy (where mortality from esophageal cancer is relatively low) and France and Switzerland (where it is relatively high). Therefore, it seemed of interest to investigate the mortality from this cancer in Piedmont. Age-adjusted yearly mortality rates for 1965-1969 were 4.3 and 0.8 per 100,000 for males and females, respectively. Rates were very similar in the town of Torino, in the 23 suburbs of the first belt, in the nonmetropolitan areas of the province of Torino, and in the other 5 provinces of Piedmont. In both sexes, the rates did not differ from those observed in Italy during 1966-1967, whereas rates for males were lower than the national rates for France and Switzerland (14.0 and 8.5/100,000/year, respectively). Rates for males were also lower than in the adjacent French departments of Savoie, Haute-Savoie, and Isère (where in 1967-1968 they ranged between 9 and 16). Mortality rates from esophageal cancer in the town of Torino were constant from 1951-1971. During the same period, mortality from laryngeal cancer in men doubled. This suggests that although some etiological agents (alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking) are common to esophageal and laryngeal cancer, the interplay between these 2 factors as well as that with other carcinogens is different for the 2 types of cancer.