Cancer and learning disability

This study was performed in order to complete a 60-year survey of the rate of deaths from cancer in a group of people with a learning disability. It was carried out on an in-patient population, and information was obtained from hospital records of deaths and patient medical notes. During the 10-year period studied, 13.6% of all deaths were from cancer, compared to a rate of 26% in the general population. The ratios of different types of cancer were also markedly different to those in the general population, with a very high proportion (55%) being cancers of the gastro-intestinal tract. Other types of cancer, such as those affecting the bronchus, breast and prostate gland, which cause death most often in the general population, hardly appeared at all in the in-patient population studied. The present paper explores some of the possible reasons for these findings and the implications for the current research in the wider field of cancer in the general population.