Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2011 May 9:11:164.
doi: 10.1186/1471-2407-11-164.

The prognostic effect of ethnicity for gastric and esophageal cancer: the population-based experience in British Columbia, Canada

Morteza Bashash  1 , T Greg Hislop, Amil M Shah, Nhu Le, Angela Brooks-Wilson, Chris D Bajdik
Affiliations

The prognostic effect of ethnicity for gastric and esophageal cancer: the population-based experience in British Columbia, Canada

Morteza Bashash et al. BMC Cancer. .

Abstract

Background: Gastric and esophageal cancers are among the most lethal human malignancies. Their epidemiology is geographically diverse. This study compares the survival of gastric and esophageal cancer patients among several ethnic groups including Chinese, South Asians, Iranians and Others in British Columbia (BC), Canada.

Methods: Data were obtained from the population-based BC Cancer Registry for patients diagnosed with invasive esophageal and gastric cancer between 1984 and 2006. The ethnicity of patients was estimated according to their names and categorized as Chinese, South Asian, Iranian or Other. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to estimate the effect of ethnicity adjusted for patient sex and age, disease histology, tumor location, disease stage and treatment.

Results: The survival of gastric cancer patients was significantly different among ethnic groups. Chinese patients showed better survival compared to others in univariate and multivariate analysis. The survival of esophageal cancer patients was significantly different among ethnic groups when the data was analyzed by a univariate test (p = 0.029), but not in the Cox multivariate model adjusted for other patient and prognostic factors.

Conclusions: Ethnicity may represent underlying genetic factors. Such factors could influence host-tumor interactions by altering the tumor's etiology and therefore its chance of spreading. Alternatively, genetic factors may determine response to treatments. Finally, ethnicity may represent non-genetic factors that affect survival. Differences in survival by ethnicity support the importance of ethnicity as a prognostic factor, and may provide clues for the future identification of genetic or lifestyle factors that underlie these observations.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Survival of gastric cancer patients by ethnic group.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Survival of gastric cancer patients by ethnic group for non-metastatic disease.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Survival of gastric cancer patients who received surgery by ethnic group for non-metastatic disease.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Survival of esophageal cancer patients by ethnic group.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Survival of esophageal cancer patients by ethnic group for non-metastatic disease.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Parkin DM, Bray F, Ferlay J, Pisani P. Global Cancer Statistics, 2002. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. 2005;55(2):74–108. doi: 10.3322/canjclin.55.2.74. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Kamangar F, Dores GM, Anderson WF. Patterns of cancer incidence, mortality, and prevalence across five continents: defining priorities to reduce cancer disparities in different geographic regions of the world. J Clin Oncol. 2006;24(14):2137–2150. doi: 10.1200/JCO.2005.05.2308. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Crew KD, Neugut AI. Epidemiology of gastric cancer. World J Gastroenterol. 2006;12(3):354–362. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Allen JW, Richardson JD, Edwards MJ. Squamous cell carcinoma of the esophagus: a review and update. SurgOncol. 1997;6(4):193–200. - PubMed
    1. Parkin DM. International variation. Oncogene. 2004;23(38):6329–6340. doi: 10.1038/sj.onc.1207726. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types