Abstract
Objectives: To examine the incidence of colorectal cancer among Asian residents of the United States according to country of birth.
Methods: We determined the incidence of colorectal cancer during 1973–1986 among Asian residents in three areas of the western United States (Hawaii, San Francisco/Oakland SMSA, and western Washington state) in relation to country of birth. Numerators for the rates were obtained from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program; a special tabulation of the 1980 US Census was used to estimate the size and composition of the population at risk.
Results: US-born Japanese men experienced incidence rates of colorectal cancer twice as high as foreign-born Japanese men and about 60% higher than those of US-born white men. Incidence among US-born Japanese women was about 40% higher than that among Japanese women born in Japan or US-born white women. Foreign-born Chinese men had about the same incidence of colorectal cancer as US-born white men, while US-born Chinese men experienced slightly reduced rates. Chinese women had rates that were generally 30–40% lower than that of US-born white women, regardless of place of birth. Incidence rates for both US-born and foreign-born Filipinos were 20–50% those of US-born whites.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that one or more exposures or characteristics that differ between Japanese migrants and their descendants affect the development of colorectal cancer.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Shimizu H, Mack TM, Ross RK, Henderson BE (1987) Cancer of the gastrointestinal tract among Japanese and white immigrants in Los Angeles County. J Natl Cancer Inst 78: 223–228.
Kolonel LN (1985) Cancer incidence among Filipinos in Hawaii and the Philippines. J Natl Cancer Inst Monogr 69: 93–98.
Menck HR, Henderson BE (1985) Cancer incidence in the Pacific Basin. J Natl Cancer Inst Monogr 69: 105–111.
Tominaga S (1985) Cancer incidence in Japanese in Japan, Hawaii, and western United States. J Natl Cancer Inst Monogr 69: 83–92.
Dunn JE (1975) Cancer epidemiology in populations of the United States-with emphasis on Hawaii and California-and Japan. Cancer Res 35: 3240–3245.
Whittemore AS (1989) Colorectal cancer incidence among Chinese in North America and the People's Republic of China: variation with sex, age and anatomical site. Int J Epidemiol 18: 563–568.
Yu H, Harris RE, Gao YT, Gao R, Wynder EL (1991) Comparative epidemiology of cancers of the colon, rectum, prostate and breast in Shanghai, China versus the United States. Int J Epidemiol 20: 76–81.
Kolonel LN, Hinds MW, Hankin JH (1980) Cancer patterns among migrant and native-born Japanese in Hawaii in relation to smoking, drinking, and dietary habits. In: Gelboin HV, et al., eds. Genetic and Environmental Factors in Experimental and Human Cancer. Tokyo: Japan Scientific Societies Press, pp. 327–340.
Hankin JH, Kolonel LN, Yano K, Heilbrun L, Nomura AMY (1983) Epidemiology of diet-related diseases in the Japanese migrant population of Hawaii. Proc Nutr Soc Aust 8: 22–40.
Emerson SS, Emerson JC (1993) Direct standardization of incidence rates in the presence of incomplete data. Stat Med 12: 3–12.
Muir CS, Waterhouse J, Mack T, Powell J, Whalen S (1987) Cancer Incidence in Five Continents. Lyon, France: International Agency for Research on Cancer, Vol. 5.
Parkin DM, Muir C, Whelan S, Gao YT, Ferlay J, Powell J (1992) Cancer Incidence in Five Continents. Lyon: International Agency for Research on Cancer, Vol. 6.
National Center for Health Statistics (1969) Comparability of Marital Status, Race, Nativity, and County of Origin on the Death Certificate and Matching Census Record. Rockville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, series 2, no. 34.
Reynolds DL, Nguyen VC, Clarke EA (1991) Reliability of cancer mortality statistics in Ontario: a comparison of incident and death diagnoses, 1979-1983. Can J Public Health 82: 120–126.
Locke FB, King H (1980) Cancer mortality risk among Japanese in the United States. J Natl Cancer Inst 65: 1149–1156.
Haenszel W, Kurihara M (1968) Studies of Japanese migrants. I. Mortality from cancer and other diseases among Japanese in the United States. J Natl Cancer Inst 40: 43–68.
King H, Locke FB (1980) Cancer mortality among Chinese in the United States. J Natl Cancer Inst 65: 1141–1148.
McMichael AJ, Potter JD (1985) Diet and colon cancer: integration of the descriptive, analytic, and metabolic epidemiology. J Natl Cancer Inst Monogr 69: 223–228.
Correa P, Haenszel W (1978) The epidemiology of large-bowel cancer. Adv Cancer Res 26: 1–141.
Ponz de Leon M, Sacchetti C, Sassatelli R, Zanghieri G, Roncucci L, Scalmati A (1990) Evidence for the existence of different types of large bowel tumor: suggestions from the clinical data of a population-based registry. J Surg Oncol 44: 35–43.
Bufill JA (1990) Colorectal cancer: evidence for distinct genetic categories based on proximal or distal tumor location. Ann Intern Med 113: 779–788.
Steinmetz KA, Potter JD (1993) Food-group consumption and colon cancer in the Adelaide Case-Control Study. II. Meat, poultry, seafood, dairy foods and eggs. Int J Cancer 53: 720–727.
Young TB, Wolf DA (1988) Case-control study of proximal and distal colon cancer and diet in Wisconsin. Int J Cancer 42: 167–175.
Peters RK, Garabrant DH, Yu MC, Mack TM (1989) A case-control study of occupational and dietary factors in colorectal cancer in young men by subsite. Cancer Res 49: 5459–5468.
Kato I, Tominaga S, Ikari A (1990) A case-control study of male colorectal cancer in Aichi Prefecture, Japan: with special reference to occupational activity level, drinking habits and family history. Jpn J Cancer Res 81: 115–121.
Inoue M, Tajima K, Hirose K, et al. (1995) Subsite-specific risk factors for colorectal cancer: a hospital-based case-control study in Japan. Cancer Causes Control 6: 14–22.
McMichael AJ, Giles GG (1994) Colorectal cancer. Cancer Surv 19-20: 77–98.
World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute for Cancer Research (1997) Colon, Rectum. In: Food, Nutrition and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective. Washington, DC: American Institute for Cancer Research, pp. 216–251.
Potter JD, Slattery ML, Bostick RM, Gapstur SM (1993) Colon cancer: a review of the epidemiology. Epidemiol Rev 15: 499–545.
Kolonel LN (1980) Cancer patterns of four ethnic groups in Hawaii. J Natl Cancer Inst 65: 1127–1139.
Whittemore AS, Kolonel LN, Wu AH, et al. (1995) Prostate cancer in relation to diet, physical activity, and body size in blacks, whites, and Asians in the United States and Canada. J Natl Cancer Inst 87: 652–661.
Haenszel W, Berg JW, Segi M, Kurihara M, Locke FB (1973) Large-bowel cancer in Hawaiian Japanese. J Natl Cancer Inst 51: 1765–1779.
Klatsky AL, Armstrong MA (1991) Cardiovascular risk factors among Asian Americans living in northern California. Am J Public Health 81: 1423–1428.
Mashimo M, Suzuki T, Abe M, Deguchi T (1992) Molecular genotyping of N-acetylation polymorphism to predict phenotype. Hum Gene 90: 139–143.
Shibuta K, Nakashima T, Abe M, et al. (1994). Molecular genotyping for N-acetylation polymorphism in Japanese patients with colorectal cancer. Cancer 74: 3108–3112.
Kampman E, Slattery ML, Bigler J, et al. (1994) Meat consumption, genetic susceptibility, and colon cancer risk: a United States multicenter case-control study. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 8: 15–24.
Potter JD, Bigler J, Fosdick L, et al. (1999) Colorectal adenomatous and hyperplastic polyps: smoking and N-acetyl-transferase 2 polymorphisms. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 8: 69–75.
Ilett KF, David BM, Detchon P, Castleden WM, Kwa R (1987) Acetylation phenotype in colorectal carcinoma. Cancer Research 47: 1466–1469.
Welfare MR, Cooper J, Bassendine MF, Daly AK (1997) Relationship between acetylator status, smoking, and diet and colorectal cancer risk in the north-east of England. Carcinogenesis 18: 1351–1354.
Probst-Hensch NM, Haile RW, Li DS, et al. (1996) Lack of association between the polyadenylation polymorphism in the NAT1 (acetyltransferase 1) gene and colorectal adenomas. Carcinogenesis 17: 2125–2129.
Lang NP, Chu DZ, Hunter CF, Kendall DC, Flammang TJ, Kadlubar FF (1986) Role of aromatic amine acetyltransferase in human colorectal cancer. Arch Surg 121: 1259–1261.
Lin HJ, Probst-Hensch NM, Hughes NC, et al. (1998) Variants of N-acetyltransferase NAT1 and a case-control study of colorectal adenomas. Pharmacogenetics 8: 269–281.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Flood, D.M., Weiss, N.S., Cook, L.S. et al. Colorectal cancer incidence in Asian migrants to the United States and their descendants. Cancer Causes Control 11, 403–411 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008955722425
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008955722425