Abstract
Knowing the health state of synanthropic animals has a high sanitary importance: it acts as a mirror for human health state as dogs share the same enviroment. Animal populations spontaneously exposed to contaminants and mutagens can represent sentinel of environmental risk factors, recognizing in them a sentinel role. The Animal Cancer Registry (RTA) is essential for the collection and comparison of data related to human/animal neoplastic pathology. Animal sentinels develope cancer erlier than man Kind: this allows the development of risk maps, reducing the time for preventive action.
The aim of the work is to evaluate if there is a difference between the incidence rates of tumors in dogs of Salerno province and in dogs of Naples province ; this evaluation could be use for in order to focus activities to safeguard Human Health.
Data of Campania RTA (provinces of Salerno and Naples in the years 2018-2022) for the canine species have been analysed. Data were extracted from the BDU (regional database) and from the Laboratory Management System of the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Southern Italy. The statistical analysis was carried out through the software R version 4.1.0.
The dataset consists of 493 cases in dogs. For the provinces analysed, four age groups were identified; subsequently, a direct standardization was performed to compare the two incidence rates by eliminating the effect of age as a confounder.
The crude incidence rate for the province of Naples is 6.20 while for the province of Salerno it is 5.82: Naples shows a higher incidence rate than Salerno. Therefore with direct standardization we obtain that for the two provinces the rates are similar: the incidence rate of tumors in dogs in Salerno is 0.26 while in Naples it is 0.24.