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The prevalence, rate of correct clinical diagnosis and mortality of cancer were analyzed in 4,894 consecutive autopsies at the Tokyo Metropolitan Geriatric Hospital from 1972 to 1990. average age and standard deviation of patients was 78.1 +/- 9.1 years. Cancer was found in 45.5% of patients of 60 years and over, and in 49.1% in men and 41.9% in women (p < 0.001). Cancer prevalence decreased with advance in age; 50.0% in the sixties, 47.9% in the seventies, 43.2% in the eighties and 39.3% in the nineties and over. Multiple cancer was found in approximately 12% of patients of 70 years and over. The top three cancer incidences were gastric cancer, 15.0%, lung cancer, 10.7% and colon cancer, 5.9% in both genders. In men, prostate cancer was next common, followed in orderly hepatic cancer, esophageal cancer, gall bladder-bile duct cancer, pancreas cancer, renal cancer and urinary bladder cancer. In women, the following order of frequency was gall bladder-bile duct cancer, uterus cancer, pancreas cancer, hepatic cancer, breast cancer, thyroid cancer, esophageal cancer, renal cancer and urinary bladder cancer. The prevalence of gastric cancer, lung cancer, hepatic cancer and esophageal cancer was significantly higher in men, while that of gall bladder-bile duct cancer was higher in women. The age-related tendencies varied among cancers of different organs. Gastric cancer increased up to the sixties in men and up to the seventies in women and leveled off after those ages. Lung cancer revealed peak prevalence in the sixties and seventies and decreased after the age of eighty.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)