Objectives and methods: Survival of 687 urinary bladder and 217 kidney cancer patients was investigated using incident cases registered in an ad hoc survey in the Umbria region for the period 1978-1982. Death certificate only cases were excluded. The follow-up was carried out through the General Nominative Register of Causes of Death and verified at the Registrar's Offices of the various towns of the Region.
Results: At 10 years about one third of all bladder cancer patients were still alive while for kidney cancer the rate was 0.41 for females and 0.26 for males. Observed survival rates, at 1 year time intervals, never differed significantly in the two sexes even if, for kidney cancer, both observed and relative survival rates were somewhat higher in females than in males and, for bladder cancer, higher in males than in females. From survival rates by age groups both observed and relative rates decreased with age in males. In females the trend was unsteady due to the low survival in the first age group (15-44 years) for the two sites and a lower rate for kidney cancers in the 55-64 years age group compared to the next age groups. This trend was also probably due to the small number of cases.
Conclusions: Comparison of survivals in Umbria with those of European registries shows higher rates for bladder cancer in both sexes and for kidney cancer in females in Umbria, while the value for kidney cancer survival in males was intermediate.