Hematological Malignancies in the Elderly: The Epidemiological Perspective

In the more developed countries the total number of new cases with a hematological tumour was 415,433 for all ages, whilst 188,654 occurred in people aged 70 or more years, representing the 45 % of total cases, equally divided into two sexes. The most these malignancies is closely linked to age and incidence rates increased exponentially after 50 years of age. Aetiology of hematological tumours is largely unknown. However the basic causal mechanism could be a decline in adaptive immunity, strongly related with individual age. In addition to such immunodeficiency, some specific risk factors have been found: viral infections, overweight and obesity (particularly for non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas - …