OBJECTIVETo describe geographical distribution and its transition of mortality of cancers in China.

METHODSThe information of 2 513 949 310 person years were collected in 1973-1975 and 142 660 482 person years in 2004-2005 respectively. Being standardizing the death rates of these two survey with 2000 national census population, the changes of mortality of main cancers was observed and the geographic distribution of cancers in 2004-2005 was analyzed.

RESULTSA total of 1 865 445 cancer deaths were collected in 1973-1975, the standardized death rate was 99.61/100 000, and 193 839 cancer deaths were collected in 2004-2005, the standardized death rate was 123.72/100 000, with growth of 24.20%. District mortality analysis showed that the provincial standardized cancer death rates varied greatly, with the highest in Heilongjiang (7443 cases, 183.34/100 000), and the lowest in Yunnan (2454 cases, 61.03/100 000). The highest standardized death rate of esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, nasopharyngeal cancer, leukemia, female breast cancer, cervical cancer was in Henan (3535 cases, 32.95/100 000), Gansu (1333 cases, 59.35/100 000), Heilongjiang (1640 cases, 38.63/100 000), Shanghai (390 cases, 11.58/100 000), Heilongjiang (2382 cases, 60.15/100 000), Hainan (36 cases, 7.04/100 000), Tianjin (161 cases, 5.45/100 000), Heilongjiang (179 cases, 8.09/100 000), Xinjiang (131 cases, 10.69/100 000) respectively; the lowest standardized cancer death rate of above-mentioned cancers was in Yunnan (63 cases, 1.59/100 000), Beijing (235 cases, 5.95/100 000), Tianjin (454 cases, 10.86/100 000), Tibet (3 cases, 0.82/100 000), Tibet (12 cases, 3.29/100 000), Qinghai (0 case, 0.00/100 000), Tibet (1 cases, 0.28/100 000), Tibet (6 cases, 2.88/100 000), Chongqing (27 cases, 1.02/100 000) respectively.

CONCLUSIONComparing the two surveys, the standardized mortality of cancers was increased. Most of cancers occurred obviously in cluster by geographical distribution.