Risk factors associated with some types of cancer in the elderly

Introduction: cancer is a disease of multifactorial origin, related to genetic and environmental risk factors. Aging is a phenomenon that occurs in the world and in Cuba. Objective: to evaluate the risk factors associated with some types of cancer in the older adult belonging to the medical office 12 of the Ernesto Guevara de la Serna polyclinic, Sandino in the period September 2018 to May 2019. Method: a longitudinal and prospective analytical study was carried out, the universe was constituted by 332 older adults, a simple random sample of 90 older adults was selected, the variables used gave them output to the research objectives, theoretical, empirical and descriptive statistics methods were used, given absolute and percentage frequency. Results: 32,2 % belonged to the age group 65-69 years, 64,4 % were female, 66,7 % were white, with pre-university school level, had other occupations, 40 % were married, normal weight (50 %) and overweight (33,3 %), 40 % were sedentary, had up to 3 risk factors associated with 45,5 %, such as family pathological history of hypertension and personal history of hypertension, and breast cancer. Conclusions: risk factors such as sedentary lifestyle, bad eating habits and smoking predominated; the combination of several of these factors favors the appearance of breast, endometrial and colorectal cancer in women and lung, colorectal and prostate cancer in men.