ABSTRACT
The cotton-top tamarin provides an excellent model for experimental studies relevant to colonic carcinomas in man and animals. Death rates with age were initially calculated separately for male and female animals. The death rate was assumed to be constant across each age interval, and the midpoint of each interval was used in the calculations of death rate with age. The death rates from all causes as a function of true age for colony-born animals and of colony-age for imported animals. Death rates for imports and colony-born animals have identical slopes except for a displacement of 2685 d for imported animals. Data were obtained from 539 cotton-top tamarins that lived over 300 days in the colony and that either died in the MARCOR facility between January 1, 1977 and April 15, 1988, or were alive in the colony on April 15, 1988. It is well established that cotton-top tamarins, maintained in captivity, spontaneously develop adenocarcinomas of the colon.
