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Previous Volume 354:333-342 January 26, 2006 Number 4 Next

	Full Text PDF PDA Full Text PowerPoint Slide Set Supplementary Material Editorial by Risch, N. Letters Add to Personal Archive Add to Citation Manager Notify a Friend E-mail When Cited E-mail When Letters Appear PubMed Citation

ABSTRACT

Background There is remarkable variation in the incidence of lung cancer among ethnic and racial groups in the United States.

Methods We investigated differences in the risk of lung cancer associated with cigarette smoking among 183,813 African-American, Japanese-American, Latino, Native Hawaiian, and white men and women in the Multiethnic Cohort Study. Our analysis included 1979 cases of incident lung cancer identified prospectively over an eight-year period, between baseline (1993 through 1996) and 2001.

Results The risk of lung cancer among ethnic and racial groups was modified by the number of cigarettes smoked per day. Among participants who smoked no more than 30 cigarettes per day, African Americans and Native Hawaiians had significantly greater risks of lung cancer than did the other groups. Among those who smoked no more than 10 and those who smoked 11 to 20 cigarettes per day, relative risks ranged from 0.21 to 0.39 (P<0.001) among Japanese Americans and Latinos and from 0.45 to 0.57 (P<0.001) among whites, as compared with African Americans. However, at levels exceeding 30 cigarettes per day, these differences were not significant. Differences in risk associated with smoking were observed among both men and women and for all histologic types of lung cancer.

Conclusions Among cigarette smokers, African Americans and Native Hawaiians are more susceptible to lung cancer than whites, Japanese Americans, and Latinos.

Source Information

From the Department of Preventive Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles (C.A.H., D.O.S., M.C.P., B.E.H.); and the Cancer Epidemiology Program, Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, University of Hawaii, Honolulu (L.R.W., L.N.K., L.L.M.).

Address reprint requests to Dr. Haiman at USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, 1441 Eastlake Ave., Rm. 4441, Los Angeles, CA 90089-9175, or at haiman{at}usc.edu.

Full Text of this Article

Related Letters:

Racial Differences in Lung Cancer
Epstein R. J., Zhao Y., Foulds J., Williams J. M., Gandhi K. K., Haiman C. A., Stram D. O., Le Marchand L.
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N Engl J Med 2006; 354:1951-1953, May 4, 2006. Correspondence

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