Incidence of leukemia in Asian migrants to the United States and their descendants.
OBJECTIVE
To generate clues regarding the causes of leukemia we compared leukemia incidence rates among Asian-American immigrants and their descendants to those of United States-born whites.


METHODS
535 Asian and 6629 white residents diagnosed with leukemia were identified through the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program during 1973 through 1986 in Hawaii, San Francisco/Oakland, and western Washington. A special tabulation of the 1980 US census was used to estimate the size and composition of the population at risk in these three areas.


RESULTS
The incidence of leukemia, either considered as a whole or as individual types, did not appreciably vary between US-born and foreign-born Asian Americans. For all forms of leukemia combined the rates per 100,000 person-years among males were 6.5 for foreign-born Chinese, 7.4 for foreign-born Japanese, and 7.5 for foreign-born Filipino as compared to 7.5 for US-born Chinese, 7.1 for US-born Japanese, and 5.4 for US-born Filipino. The rates in foreign-born Asian females and US-born Asian females were also similar. Asian Americans had a lower incidence of leukemia than US whites (rate of 13.3/100,000 person-years), particularly for chronic lymphocytic leukemia.


CONCLUSIONS
Irrespective of birthplace, Asian Americans possess one or more characteristics which make their risk for leukemia less than that of US whites.
Pan
Jenny W Y
JW
University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Department of Epidemiology, Seattle 98195, USA. jwpang@u.washington.edu
Cook
Linda S
LS
Schwartz
Stephen M
SM
Weis
Noel S
NS
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001213:Asian / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007938:Leukemia / Q000208:ethnology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011159:Population Surveillance; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology