Abstract

Esophageal cancer is the sixth leading cause of death from malignancies in the world. Given its importance, it is a disease that needs further studies to deepen its understanding and epidemiological behavior. The aim of this work is to evaluate the epidemiological profile of EC in the ABC, Southeast and the national territory of Brazil between 2008 and 2017. This is an ecological study that evaluated the temporal trend of esophageal cancer in the elderly population, between 50 and 79 years of age, between 2008 and 2017 in the ABC region compared to the Southeast region and Brazil as a whole.  The number of male hospitalizations has shown an increasing pattern over the years studied in the Southeast and Brazil. The mean number of days of hospitalization tended to decrease for both genders, whereas in the male gender this reduction was expressed in all of the analyzed regions, and in the female gender only in the Southeast and in national scale in Brazil, in a statistically significant way. The average cost of hospitalizations increased in the Southeast and Brazil for males. These findings are important public health markers, which should be considered for the establishment of preventive and health promotion measures for the public network.

Key words: Esophagus, cancer, epidemiology