Tumori, 88: 89-94, 2002 Results and discussion The number of certified cancer deaths in Italy rose to 158,941 in 1998. However, the rise in absolute numbers of deaths was due essentially to the aging of the popula- tion, since overall age-adjusted rates were stable in both sexes, as were female rates in middle age (35-64 years). Truncated rates declined for males from 203.4 to 196.6/100,000. This was essentially due to the persis- tent drop in mortality from lung cancer and other tobac- co-related neoplasms in males, reflecting the fall in male smoking prevalence in the 1980’s and early 1990’s 5,6 . Male lung cancer rates at age 35 to 64 de- clined to 59.9/100,000, with an over 42% fall from the peak level of 96.7 reached in 1993 7 . Still, lung cancer accounted for 30.7% of all cancer deaths in males aged 35 to 64 in 1998, indicating the scope and importance of further reducing smoking prevalence in young and middle age Italian males. Female lung cancer rates (8.1/100,000 at all ages, 11.6 at age 35 to 64) have been stable since 1992. Among other neoplasms, there was an appreciable decline in liver cancer (6.0/100,000 males, -33%, 1.8%/100,000, -38% for females, since 1994). Although the reliability and validity of death certification for liver cancer remain open to discussion, since this is a com- mon site of metastases 8 , these changes are too large to be ignored, and deserve therefore further attention and interpretation. Likewise, over the last decade bladder cancer rates declined by 30% in males and 23% in females. This fall was greater than that observed for lung but not other to- bacco-related neoplasms in males, and likely reflects exposure to occupational exposures and other bladder cancer risk factors 9 . A continuing fall was also observed in female breast cancer mortality. The rates for 1998 (18.1/100,000 at all ages, 34.7 at age 35 to 64) were 13% and 16% lower than those of 1989. As in other countries 10 , these favor - able trends likely reflect advancements in diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Some persistent fall was also observed in other neo- plasms amenable to therapy, such as leukemias and Hodgkin’s disease 11,12 . Acknowleldgments: The study was conducted within the financial contribution of the Italian Association for Cancer Research, the Italian League Against Cancer, and the Italian Ministry of Health. The authors thank Mrs M Paola Bonifacino for editorial assistance. Correspondence to: Eva Negri, ScD, Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri, Via Eritrea 62, 20157 Milan, Italy.Tel +39-02-39014526; fax +39-02-33200231, 39001916; e-mail evanegri@marionegri.it Received November 16, 2001; accepted November 20, 2001. CANCER MORTALITY IN ITALY, 1998 Eva Negri 1 , Carlo La Vecchia 1,2 , and Adriano Decarli 3 1 Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche “Mario Negri”, Milan; 2 Istituto di Statistica Medica e Biometria, Università degli Studi, Milan; 3 Sezione di Statistica Medica e Biometria, Università degli Studi, Brescia, Italy Key words: epidemiology, Italy, mortality, neoplasms. This short report provides data and statistics of cancer mor- tality in Italy in 1998, updating previous work on the issue.The material and methods of this report are similar to those previ- ously described 1,2 . Briefly, cancer death certification numbers by cause and estimates of the resident population in 1998, stratified by sex and quinquennia of age, were abstracted from data provided by the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT) 3 . All cancers or groups of cancers, classified according to the standard International Classification of Diseases (ICD), Ninth Revision 4 , were grouped in 31 categories, besides total cancer mortality and other and unspecified sites. We grouped togeth- er all intestinal sites, melanomas and non-melanomatous skin neoplasms, all uterine neoplasms (cervix and corpus), all neo- plasms of the brain and nerves (benign and malignant), all leukemias, and all non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas. Eight tables were produced,including the following statistics: 1) number of deaths, crude and age-standardized death certi- fication rates, and percentages of all cancer deaths for popu- lation at all ages and truncated 35-64 years (Table 1 for males and Table 2 for females). Two different standards were used: i) the 1971 Italian census population, corrected for census un- dercount and subdivided into 16 quinquennia of age from 0-4 to 75-79, plus 80 and over, and ii) the world standard popula- tion, for purposes of comparison with other countries;2) age- specific death certification rates for each sex and quinquenni- um of age from 0-4 to 75-79, plus 80 and over (Table 3 for males and Table 4 for females); 3) total number of registered deaths for each cancer or group of cancers, sex and age group (Table 5 for males and Table 6 for females); 4) percent- age of all cancer deaths for each sex and age group (Table 7 for males and Table 8 for females). A few comments are included, mainly in order to assist read- ing and interpretation of data for major cancer sites, and to re- call underlying long-term tendencies. Any inference should in any case be based on age-standardized rates,and,essentially, on detailed inspection of age-specific rates.