Perfil de mortalidad de los principales tipos de càncer según ciclo vital en las provincias ecuatorianas y sus determinantes sociales, espaciales y temporalesEcuador 1970-2013

Resum

A disease existing from ancient times, which has caused the death of a large number of people worldwide, is cancer. With few exceptions, its etiology is unknown despite the advances in modern medicine. In Ecuador, as in the rest of the world, cancer is one of the main causes of death; a situation that has been evident in the last decades when the so-called epidemiological transition occurs, which involved the change of infectious diseases as the main cause of death, to catastrophic diseases such as cancer. The tendency of cancer mortality rates in the last decades of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century was studied; a rising trend of cases diagnosed with all types of cancer was found. Mortality rates were located spatially in the natural regions in which the country is divided, and in each of these regions, in the ecological units that comprise them, there were no defined patterns of behavior of these rates observed. In addition, mortality rates were spatially determined according to the administrative political division, taking as a unit of analysis: the canton and in some cases the parish. Besides, mortality was connected with the economic and social classification of the unit, mining and oil extraction, the growing of crops such as banana, potatoes, flowers which are the base of the Ecuadorian economy, as well as the main rivers of the country. It turns out that differences in the appearance of different types of cancer are evident.