RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: Describe trends in morbidity and lethality of cancer in University Hospital Joaquín Albarrán (La Habana, Cuba). METHOD: Carry out a temporal series studies of patients admitted from january 1999 to december 2005. We obtain information about admission, total and for cancer, deceased patients and lethality rates (deceased for cancer/admission for cancer x 100). From the 2005 admission we obtain age, sex, cause of admission, and if the diagnostic of cancer was doing during this admission or before. RESULTS: Trend of cancer's admission have continuous increase during 1999-2005 period, with 3% of admission in 1999 to 7.99% in 2005. Lethality rates have an irregular behavior with smaller rate in 1999 (12.7%) and bigger in 2001 (27.86%). Internal Medicine service gave care to 60.71% of cancer admission, with less frequency in general surgery service (26.81%). 44% of patients were diagnosed during this admission, and 56% the diagnosis was doing in previous admission, of which 42.1% were admitted to treatment (surgical and drugs) and 53.5% for cancer complications. CONCLUSIONS: We show a continuous increased trend in hospital cancer morbidity. It is a commit to modify healthcare's strategies of cancer patient addressed to guarantee the quality of services in front of the increased demand.