Tehran University of Medical Sciences Acta Medica Iranica 0044-6025 56 9 2018 12 25 585 590 EN Salman Khazaei Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran. Kamyar Mansori Social Development and Health Promotion Research Center, Gonabad University of Medical Sciences, Gonabad, Iran. AND Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Erfan Ayubi Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Mokhtar Soheylizad Department of Health Education, School of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran. Abolfazl Mohammadbeigi Research Center for Environmental Pollutants, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran. Shahrzad Nematollahi Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Zaher Khazaei Department of Epidemiology, Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran. Mahin Ahmadi-Pishkuhi Pars Advanced and Minimally Invasive Medical Manners Research Center, Pars Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. 2018 02 16 2018 11 05 Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide and among Iranian population; cancer is the third important causes of death. It is a critical issue to identify sex and age group difference of cancer pattern for planning and management of cancer patients, therefore the aim of present study was to examine sex and age difference in cancer incidence during 2003-2008 in Iran. The National Cancer Registry (NCR) reports from 2003 to 2008 have been applied to test trend of cancer incidence and illustrating sex-age disparity of most common cancers in Iran. Direct adjustment method was used for computing the age-specific rates (ASRs) and Cochran-Armitage tests for trends were used to test statistical significance of cancer incidence rate in both genders during 2003-2008. Our findings indicated that male and female incidence rate is increased from 64.2 to 117.5 and from 50.1 to 105.8, respectively during 2003-2008 (P for trend <0.001). Highest Age-Specific Rate of cancer in male was for stomach cancer (ASR=12.8), beside of skin cancer and in female was for breast cancer (ASR=33.2). Highest incidence rate of cancers was found in people aged 80-84 years in both genders. In elderly people, incidence rate of cancer was higher in male than female. The observed sex-age disparity of common cancers in this study indicated that male cancer of stomach and bladder and female cancer of breast and colorectal can be targeted in cancer control and prevention programs are required to reach remarkable reduction of cancer burden in Iran. https://acta.tums.ac.ir/index.php/acta/article/view/7052 https://acta.tums.ac.ir/index.php/acta/article/download/7052/5157