Multivariate analysis of cancer mortalities for selected sites in 24 countries.

Abstract

In order to analyze the pattern in the geographical distribution of cancer death in 24 countries of the world, correlation coefficients were calculated between pairs of mortality rates of different cancer sites, using the data for 13 sites in males and 14 sites in females over 18 years from 1950 to 1967. Then factor analysis by means of varimax method was performed on 13 x 13 correlation matrix for males, 14 x 14 correlation matrix for females and 27 x 27 correlation matrix for males and females combined. As a result of factor analysis, three factors are extracted, which are commonly recognized in both males and females. The first factor has high positive factor loadings on pancreas, prostate (for males), skin, and intestine cancers, and negative loadings on stomach and liver cancers. The second factor has high positive factor loading on rectum, intestine, and lung cancers, and the third factor on larynx, oral, and esophagus cancers. Factor analysis based on 27 x 27 correlation matrix revealed that the third factor of both sexes are heterogeneous with regards to the distributions of the factor score. In order that we may find some clues to develop an etiological hypothesis for each site of cancer, we obtained the correlation coefficient between the scores of the extracted factors and the variables on food and environmental agent, and performed stepwise regression methods as well. One of the most striking results we obtained was that excessive drinking of alcohol and the lack of appropriate intake of fruit are suspected as etiological promoters in the pathogenesis of oral, esophagus, and larynx cancers in males.

A Geographic Correlation Study of the Incidence of Pancreatic and other Cancers in Whites

“…A correlation between pancreatic and colon cancer was present in previous studies from Europe and Canada [10,26,32,33]. Although these results might reflect common etiologic or pathogenetic factors, in particular obesity, the lack of consistency between our two study populations limits their interpretation.…”

“…The reduced correlation after adjusting for lung cancer incidence strongly suggests tobacco as common risk factor, and the lack of a correlation within the data on European men might reflect the important role played by black tobacco smoking in determining the geographic pattern of bladder cancer among European men [34], which might not be relevant to pancreatic carcinogenesis. Previous studies from Europe and North America did not report a consistent association between pancreatic and bladder cancer [10,26,27,32,33].…”

Geographical Pattern of Malignant Neoplasm by Cluster Analysis Using Standardized Mortality Ratios (SMRs) in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.

“…Various dietary habits, on the one hand, are suspected risk factors of esophagus cancer, as in the excessive consumption of alcohol 31 ) , “Chagayu” (rice gruel cooked in hot tea) 32 ) , fermented foodstuffs, salty vegetables and cured meat 23 ) . On the other hand, these risk factors could be associated with nutritional deficiency, consumption of nitrosamines and moldy foodstuff, molybdenum deficiency, poor oral hygiene and specific living habits 33 ) .…”

Parallelism in the mortality clustering of the most frequent cancer sites in Italy and in the Marche region

“…Further refinement of this descriptive analysis can be made utilizing some statistical multivariate methods, chiefly cluster and factor analysis (4,7,8,20). In Italy these analyses were applied to cancer mortality data from several provinces in 1957-65 and 1971-74 (1, 2, 3) and more recently, to data divided by sex, in 1957-77 (12).…”