Introduction The purpose of this study is a consideration of the age and sex distribution and incidence of benign and malignant tumors at the Memorial Hospital of New York City. In the usual statistical study of tumors, there are several palpaple sources of error. One such source is the variable latent period existing between the time the tumor begins and its discovery. This variability depends on many factors such as the type and nature of the particular tumor, the intelligence and personal concern of the patient and the diagnostic acumen of his physician. The difference in time is not so important as regards the age of patients with malignant tumors, because few cancers exist longer than one to two years without discovery by the patient. Proper consideration should be given to the length of time during which the tumor existed subsequent to its discovery and prior to the admission of the patient to the clinic. This period is considerable for such slow-growing tumors as basal-cell cancers, lipomas and neurofibromas. The patient's estimation of this time interval is frequently unreliable. Another disturbing source of error is the obscurity of the primary location of certain carcinomas secondarily involving the liver or cervical lymph nodes. Some statistics covering cancer ages are based on mortality figures, which are naturally later than the ages of onset.
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Pack et al. (1930) studied this question.