Due to improved treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease, cancer has overtaken it as the most common cause of death in Israeli men and women. The switch began to occur at the end of the 1990s among women aged 25 to 74 and men aged 45 to 74 - and as well as children aged one to 14. These are some of the statistics released for publication Monday in a 22-page report released by the Health Ministry's data department, headed by Ziona Haklai.

The cancer rate has remained relatively steady, except for a decline among males aged 25 to 44 from 21 per 100,000 in 1998 to 15 in 2004.

Heart disease is still the leading cause of death in Israelis over the age of 75, but the mortality rates from this are similar to those of deaths from cancer. Number three on the list is stroke, followed by complications of diabetes, whose rates have remained steady since the late 1990s.

There is an increase in death rates from kidney diseases, which is fifth on the list. It has risen from 13.8 per 100,000 among men in 1998 to 28.1 in 2004, compared to 12 per 100,000 to 24.9 in women respectively.

Road, work and home accidents follow on the list (although they are more common among men than women), followed by chronic respiratory disease. But accidents are the most common cause of death in males and females aged 15 to 24. Suicide is the eighth most common cause of death among men and 12th among women. It is also the second most common cause of death among men aged 15 to 24 and third among women aged 15 to 44.

Complications of influenza, including pneumonia, are the ninth most common cause of death and seventh among elderly over 75.

Death rates were calculated by studying Interior Ministry data on death notices and coding for causes of death by the Central Bureau of Statistics.