Tendències temporals de la mortalitat per càncer de fetge a Catalunya: periode 1983-2002 i projeccions pel 2005

Estudi elaborat a partir d’una estada al Finnish Cancer Registry a Helsinki, Finlandia entre setembre i novembre del 2006. Davant l’increment dels tumors hepàtics en països industrialitzats, s’avaluen les tendències temporals de la malaltia hepàtica a Catalunya durant el període 1983-2002 i s’estima la tendència futura a partir de l’any 2005. L’estudi s’ha basat en dades del Registre de Mortalitat de Catalunya i de l’Institut d’Estadística de Catalunya. La malaltia hepàtica inclou diverses tipologies de tumors hepàtics i la cirrosi hepàtica. Els models edad-període-cohort s’han emprat per estimar els efectes període de mortalitat i cohort de naixement. Els resultats han mostrat que les taxes de mortalitat per cirrosi han disminuït en ambdós sexes, exceptuant els homes d’entre els 35-50 anys, pels quals la mortalitat es mantingué estable. S’han observat increments en la mortalitat per carcinoma hepatocel•lular i en els tumors de vies biliars intrahepàtiques, mentre que les projeccions mostren estabilitat en la tendència d’aquestes malalties durant el període 2005-2009. Les tendències de la mortalitat per malaltia hepàtica constatades poden ser degudes a la implementació de teràpies noves, nous mètodes de diagnòstic, infecció pel virus de l’hepatitis C d’altres factors desconeguts.

Monitoring the decreasing trend of testicular cancer mortality in Spain during 2005-2019 through a Bayesian approach

Purpose : To assess time trends of testicular cancer (TC) mortality in Spain for period 1985-2019 for age groups 15-74 years old through a Bayesian age-period-cohort (APC) analysis. Methods: A Bayesian age-drift model has been fitted to describe trends. Projections for 2005-2019 have been calculated by means of an autoregressive APC model. Prior precision for these parameters has been selected through evaluation of an adaptive precision parameter and 95% credible intervals (95% CRI) have been obtained for each model parameter. Results: A decrease of -2.41% (95% CRI: -3.65%; -1.13%) per year has been found for TC mortality rates in age groups 15-74 during 1985-2004, whereas mortality showed a lower annual decrease when data was restricted to age groups 15-54 (-1.18%; 95% CRI: -2.60%; -0.31%). During 2005-2019 is expected a decrease of TC mortality of 2.30% per year for men younger than 35, whereas a leveling off for TC mortality rates is expected for men older than 35. Conclusions: A Bayesian approach should be recommended to describe and project time trends for those diseases with low number of cases. Through this model it has been assessed that management of TC and advances in therapy led to decreasing trend of TC mortality during the period 1985-2004, whereas a leveling off for these trends can be considered during 2005-2019 among men older than 35.

Monitoring the decreasing trend of testicular cancer mortality in Spain during 2005-2019 through a Bayesian approach

Purpose : To assess time trends of testicular cancer (TC) mortality in Spain for period 1985-2019 for age groups 15-74 years old through a Bayesian age-period-cohort (APC) analysis. Methods: A Bayesian age-drift model has been fitted to describe trends. Projections for 2005-2019 have been calculated by means of an autoregressive APC model. Prior precision for these parameters has been selected through evaluation of an adaptive precision parameter and 95% credible intervals (95% CRI) have been obtained for each model parameter. Results: A decrease of -2.41% (95% CRI: -3.65%; -1.13%) per year has been found for TC mortality rates in age groups 15-74 during 1985-2004, whereas mortality showed a lower annual decrease when data was restricted to age groups 15-54 (-1.18%; 95% CRI: -2.60%; -0.31%). During 2005-2019 is expected a decrease of TC mortality of 2.30% per year for men younger than 35, whereas a leveling off for TC mortality rates is expected for men older than 35. Conclusions: A Bayesian approach should be recommended to describe and project time trends for those diseases with low number of cases. Through this model it has been assessed that management of TC and advances in therapy led to decreasing trend of TC mortality during the period 1985-2004, whereas a leveling off for these trends can be considered during 2005-2019 among men older than 35.

Monitoring the decreasing trend of testicular cancer mortality in Spain during 2005-2019 through a Bayesian approach

Purpose : To assess time trends of testicular cancer (TC) mortality in Spain for period 1985-2019 for age groups 15-74 years old through a Bayesian age-period-cohort (APC) analysis. Methods: A Bayesian age-drift model has been fitted to describe trends. Projections for 2005-2019 have been calculated by means of an autoregressive APC model. Prior precision for these parameters has been selected through evaluation of an adaptive precision parameter and 95% credible intervals (95% CRI) have been obtained for each model parameter. Results: A decrease of -2.41% (95% CRI: -3.65%; -1.13%) per year has been found for TC mortality rates in age groups 15-74 during 1985-2004, whereas mortality showed a lower annual decrease when data was restricted to age groups 15-54 (-1.18%; 95% CRI: -2.60%; -0.31%). During 2005-2019 is expected a decrease of TC mortality of 2.30% per year for men younger than 35, whereas a leveling off for TC mortality rates is expected for men older than 35. Conclusions: A Bayesian approach should be recommended to describe and project time trends for those diseases with low number of cases. Through this model it has been assessed that management of TC and advances in therapy led to decreasing trend of TC mortality during the period 1985-2004, whereas a leveling off for these trends can be considered during 2005-2019 among men older than 35.

Monitoring the decreasing trend of testicular cancer mortality in Spain during 2005-2019 through a Bayesian approach

Purpose : To assess time trends of testicular cancer (TC) mortality in Spain for period 1985-2019 for age groups 15-74 years old through a Bayesian age-period-cohort (APC) analysis. Methods: A Bayesian age-drift model has been fitted to describe trends. Projections for 2005-2019 have been calculated by means of an autoregressive APC model. Prior precision for these parameters has been selected through evaluation of an adaptive precision parameter and 95% credible intervals (95% CRI) have been obtained for each model parameter. Results: A decrease of -2.41% (95% CRI: -3.65%; -1.13%) per year has been found for TC mortality rates in age groups 15-74 during 1985-2004, whereas mortality showed a lower annual decrease when data was restricted to age groups 15-54 (-1.18%; 95% CRI: -2.60%; -0.31%). During 2005-2019 is expected a decrease of TC mortality of 2.30% per year for men younger than 35, whereas a leveling off for TC mortality rates is expected for men older than 35. Conclusions: A Bayesian approach should be recommended to describe and project time trends for those diseases with low number of cases. Through this model it has been assessed that management of TC and advances in therapy led to decreasing trend of TC mortality during the period 1985-2004, whereas a leveling off for these trends can be considered during 2005-2019 among men older than 35.

REGSTATTOOLS: freeware statistical tools for the analysis of disease population databases used in health and social studies

Background: The repertoire of statistical methods dealing with the descriptive analysis of the burden of a disease has been expanded and implemented in statistical software packages during the last years. The purpose of this paper is to present a web-based tool, REGSTATTOOLS http://regstattools.net intended to provide analysis for the burden of cancer, or other group of disease registry data. Three software applications are included in REGSTATTOOLS: SART (analysis of disease"s rates and its time trends), RiskDiff (analysis of percent changes in the rates due to demographic factors and risk of developing or dying from a disease) and WAERS (relative survival analysis). Results: We show a real-data application through the assessment of the burden of tobacco-related cancer incidence in two Spanish regions in the period 1995-2004. Making use of SART we show that lung cancer is the most common cancer among those cancers, with rising trends in incidence among women. We compared 2000-2004 data with that of 1995-1999 to assess percent changes in the number of cases as well as relative survival using RiskDiff and WAERS, respectively. We show that the net change increase in lung cancer cases among women was mainly attributable to an increased risk of developing lung cancer, whereas in men it is attributable to the increase in population size. Among men, lung cancer relative survival was higher in 2000-2004 than in 1995-1999, whereas it was similar among women when these time periods were compared. Conclusions: Unlike other similar applications, REGSTATTOOLS does not require local software installation and it is simple to use, fast and easy to interpret. It is a set of web-based statistical tools intended for automated calculation of population indicators that any professional in health or social sciences may require.

Trends in indices of daily precipitation extremes in Catalonia (NE Spain), 1951-2003

The aim of this paper is to quantitatively characterize the climatology of daily precipitation indices in Catalonia (northeastern Iberian Peninsula) from 1951 to 2003. This work has been performed analyzing a subset of the ETCCDI (Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices) precipitation indices calculated from a new interpolated dataset of daily precipitation, namely SPAIN02, regular at 0.2° horizontal resolution (around 20 km) and from two high-quality stations: the Ebro and Fabra observatories. Using a jack-knife technique, we have found that the sampling error of the SPAIN02 regional averaged is relatively low. The trend analysis has been implemented using a Circular Block Bootstrap procedure applicable to non-normal distributions and autocorrelated series. A running trend analysis has been applied to analyze the trend persistence. No general trends at a regional scale are observed, considering the annual or the seasonal regional averaged series of all the indices for all the time windows considered. Only the consecutive dry days index (CDD) at annual scale shows a locally coherent spatial trend pattern; around 30% of the Catalonia area has experienced an increase of around 2¿3 days decade¿1. The Ebro and Fabra observatories show a similar CDD trend, mainly due to the summer contribution. Besides this, a significant decrease in total precipitation (around ¿10 mm decade¿1) and in the index "highest precipitation amount in five-day period" (RX5DAY, around ¿5 mm decade¿1), have been found in summer for the Ebro observatory.

Assessing trends in insured losses from floods in Spain 1971-2008

Economic impacts from floods have been increasing over recent decades, a fact often attributed to a changing climate. On the other hand, there is now a significant body of scientific scholarship all pointing towards increasing concentrations and values of assets as the principle cause of the increasing cost of natural disasters. This holds true for a variety of perils and across different jurisdictions. With this in mind, this paper examines the time history of insured losses from floods in Spain between 1971 and 2008. It as- sesses whether any discernible residual signal remains after adjusting the data for the increase in the number and value of insured assets over this period of time. Data on insured losses from floods were sourced from Consorcio de Com- pensacíon de Seguros (CCS). Although a public institution, CCS compensates homeowners for the damage produced by floods, and thus plays a role similar to that of a private insurance company. Insured losses were adjusted using two proxy measures: first, changes in the total amount of annual surcharges (premiums) paid by customers to CCS, and secondly, changes in the total value of dwellings per year. The adjusted data reveals no significant trend over the period 1971-2008 and serves again to confirm that at this juncture, societal in- fluences remain the prime factors driving insured and economic losses from natural disasters.

Characterizing major avalanche episodes in space and time in the twentieth and early twentyfirst centuries in the Catalan Pyrenees

With the aim of better understanding avalanche risk in the Catalan Pyrenees, the present work focuses on the analysis of major (or destructive) avalanches. For such purpose major avalanche cartography was made by an exhaustive photointerpretation of several flights, winter and summer field surveys and inquiries to local population. Major avalanche events were used to quantify the magnitude of the episodes during which they occurred, and a Major Avalanche Activity Magnitude Index (MAAMI) was developed. This index is based on the number of major avalanches registered and its estimated frequency in a given time period, hence it quantifies the magnitude of a major avalanche episode or winter. Furthermore, it permits a comparison of the magnitude between major avalanche episodes in a given mountain range, or between mountain ranges, and for a long enough period, it should allow analysis of temporal trends. Major episodes from winter 1995/96 to 2013/14 were reconstructed. Their magnitude, frequency and extent were also assessed. During the last 19 winters, the episodes of January 22-23 and February 6-8 in 1996 were those with highest MAAMI values,followed by January 30-31, 2003, January 29, 2006, and January 24-25, 2014. To analyze the whole twentieth century, a simplified MAAMI was defined in order to attain the same purpose with a less complete dataset. With less accuracy, the same parameters were obtained at winter time resolution throughout the twentieth century. Again, 1995/96 winter had the highest MAAMI value followed by 1971/72, 1974/75 and 1937/38 winter seasons. The analysis of the spatial extent of the different episodes allowed refining the demarcation of nivological regions, and improving our knowledge about the atmospheric patterns that cause major episodes and their climatic interpretation. In some cases, the importance of considering a major avalanche episode as the result of a previous preparatory period, followed by a triggering one was revealed.