The Incidence of Malignant Neoplasms in Unselected Autopsy Material from Haiti

Abstract

The opinion that cancer is a disease of civilized life is strangely persistent, although practically all recent studies have shown that when age distribution of the population and inadequacy of medical care are fully appreciated, the total incidence, though not necessarily the organ distribution, of cancer is found to be much the same in primitive and in civilized communities. The writer has had the opportunity recently to examine microscopical sections from 174 autopsies performed under the direction of Commander John H. Chambers of the United States Navy at Port au Prince, Haiti.1 This material was absolutely unselected in respect to malignant disease, other than that the patients were all adults. In part, it was selected as showing aortic lesions which might be those of syphilis or yaws. The incidence of cancer should have been reduced, if influenced at all, by this selection since major causes of death tend to be mutually exclusive. That is, those dying of cardiovascular disease are less apt to have cancer than is the entire population of the same age, which includes those in which cancer is the chief cause of death. The character of the material is described more fully elsewhere (1). Only a few blocks of tissue were available from many of these autopsies, aorta, heart, adrenals, testes, pancreas, and liver being the organs most constantly represented.