Mortality at ages 75 and older in the cancer prevention study (cpsi)

In the fall of 1959 the American Cancer Society began a comprehensiveepidemiologic invesTIGation of more than one million men and women drawnmainly from the middle‐class population. The study reported here presents aportion of the invesTIGation relating to the mortality among 49,469subjects who attained age 75 years and older during the course of thestudy. Both men and women who at entry into this study (1960) were judgedto be in good health registered distinctly lower mortality than thosejudged to be in poor health. Men and women with some college education hadsignificantly lower death rates than those with lesser schooling. Men andwomen who reported a good family history of longevity showed consistentlylower death rates in each five‐year age group than those with average orpoor family history of longevity. Persons with an average family history oflongevity generally had lower death rates than those with a poor familyhistory of longevity. Analysis of mortality by cause indicated that at ages75 and older nearly half the deaths were attributed to all forms of heartdisease. Coronary heart disease accounted for about 35 percent of alldeaths, with the proportion decreasing with age. Deaths from stroke rosefrom 15 to about 20 percent with increase in age. Deaths from all sites ofcancer declined with advancing age in both sexes, from about 16 percent ofall deaths at ages 75 to 79 to about six percent at ages 90 to 99. Amongmen, cancer of the prostate accounted for 3.5 percent of deaths at ages 75to 84, decreasing to about one half this proportion in the early‐90s agegroup. Colorectal cancer decreased from about three percent of total deathsat ages 75 to 84 to about 1.5 percent in the early 90s. Lung cancer andstomach cancer remained at the same level at these ages.