LB63
Cancer incidence in British Indians in Leicester: 2001 2006
Raghib Ali, Isobel Barnes
Oxford University, UK
Background
Cancer incidence rates are much lower in India than in Britain. Studies in migrant populations can help to elucidate the relative contribution of
genetic and environmental factors to cancer incidence. Leicester has the
largest population of Indian origin in Britain with the first migrants arriving
in the 1950s.
Since 1996, data has been collected on self-assigned ethnicity in the Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) database. This is the first study to calculate cancer incidence in Leicester using HES data.
Method
We obtained data on all cancer registrations from January 2001 to December
2006 for residents of the local authority of Leicester from the Trent Cancer
Registry. The data consisted of the sex, age, site of the cancer and
deprivation (income domain of the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) 2007).
Ethnicity data was obtained by linkage to the HES database. Denominator
population estimates - stratified by sex, age, ethnicity, and quintile of the
income domain of the IMD 2007- were obtained from the 2001 census.
Age-standardised rates per 100 000 person years were calculated for British
Indians and British Whites and Poisson regression was used to estimate incident
rate ratios adjusted for age and deprivation.
Results
Data on ethnicity was available for 92% of cases.
Incidence rate ratios (95% CI) adjusted for age and deprivation were as
follows:
Females: All cancers 0.64 (0.58-0.72), breast 0.69 (0.57 0.83),
colorectal 0.61 (0.42- 0.89), lung 0.15 (0.08 0.27).
Males: All cancers 0.59 (0.52 0.66), prostate 0.73 (0.56 0.96),
colorectal 0.59 (0.42 0.84), lung 0.39 (0.28 0.54).
Conclusion
This study, which had almost complete ethnicity data, confirms that cancer
incidence in British Indians is still lower than that in British Whites.
Further research is planned to investigate how cancer incidence varies by
duration of residence, age at entry and between the first & second generations.
