Moving to the US increases cancer risk for Hispanics

06-Aug-2009 - USA

Results of a new study confirm trends that different Hispanic population groups have higher incidence rates of certain cancers and worse cancer outcomes if they live in the United States, than they do if they live in their homelands. These results are published in Cancer Epidemiology, biomarkers & Prevention.

"Hispanics are not all the same with regard to their cancer experience," said the study's lead researcher Paulo S. Pinheiro, M.D., Ph.D., M.Sc., researcher in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "Targeted interventions for cancer prevention and control should take into account the specificity of each Hispanic subgroup: Cubans, Puerto Ricans or Mexicans."

Studies to date have classified all Hispanics under the same umbrella, as a single ethnic group, hiding the differences between each population group.

Blood-based micro-RNAs indicate the risk of colorectal cancer

Promising new method to determine a person's individual risk of disease more accurately

Read news

"They are really heterogeneous from cultural and socioeconomic perspectives and represent several population groups," said Amelie G. Ramirez, Dr.P.H., director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research, and co-associate director of the Cancer Prevention and Population Studies research program at the Cancer Therapy & Research Center at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Pinheiro and colleagues evaluated the kinds of cancers occurring in each Hispanic population group and compared their risk after moving to the United States. They conducted the study in Florida, which has a diverse Hispanic community composed of Cubans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Central and South Americans.

The results indicated that these population groups showed different patterns of cancer once they moved to the United States; Mexicans had the lowest rates of cancer overall and Puerto Ricans had the highest rates of cancer. Cubans' risk of cancer most closely resembles that of non-Hispanic whites. Similar to the U.S. non-Hispanic white population, Cubans and Puerto Ricans seemed to acquire higher risk for diet-related cancers relatively quickly.

Furthermore, Cuban males had higher incidence of tobacco-related cancers; Puerto Rican men had high incidence of liver cancer; and Mexican women had a higher incidence of cervical cancer. For all cancers combined, risk for most cancers was higher (at least 40 percent) among Hispanics living in the United States compared with those who live in their countries of origin. Colorectal cancer risk among Cubans and Mexicans who moved to the United States was more than double that in Cuba and Mexico. The same was said for lung cancer among Mexican and Puerto Rican Floridian women compared to those in Mexico or Puerto Rico.

"This suggests that changes in their environment and lifestyles make them more prone to develop cancer," Pinheiro said. "It is puzzling that the groups for which integration in mainstream American society is easier, including access to health care, are also those with higher cancer rates even after accounting for the increased detection of certain cancers in the United States."

https://www.bionity.com/en/news/104397/moving-to-the-us-increases-cancer-risk-for-hispanics.html