The INEC General Mortality Rate of Ecuador erroneously underestimates Cancer: Original Research

Abstract

Introduction: The application of the 6-61 classification system to obtain the mortality rate within the statistics of the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC) has an accounting bias in the different pathologies: in particular cases it includes categories and subcategories of diseases Oncological and in other cases excludes the categories and only the subcategory is counted, for this reason, the present database study (BD) was proposed to obtain the true mortality rate including the excluded categories.

Methodology: The present study is a review of the mortality database in Ecuador. The period analyzed January 1990 - December 2016, using the mortality database in Ecuador available on the INEC website. The categories were added to the excluded oncological diseases, according to the ICD-10, which the INEC did not consider as oncological disease.

Results: Mortality in Ecuador from oncological diseases, presented as a cumulative percentage of 10.25% in 1990 and has a progressive increase up to 14.8% in 2016, which constitutes the first cause of death in all years of the study.

Conclusions: Cancer is the leading cause of death, not only due to the contribution of certain provinces, but also a broader phenomenon, possibly throughout the entire territory of Ecuador, which is possibly associated with an epidemiological change that corresponds to modernity.