title: Survival of Sami cancer patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The incidence of cancer among the indigenous Sami people of Northern Finland is lower than among the Finnish general population. The survival of Sami cancer patients is not known, and therefore it is the object of this study.
  
  
  METHODS
  The cohort consisted of 2,091 Sami and 4,161 non-Sami who lived on 31 December 1978 in the two Sami municipalities of Inari and Utsjoki, which are located in Northern Finland and are 300-500 km away from the nearest central hospital. The survival experience of Sami and non-Sami cancer patients diagnosed in this cohort during 1979-2009 was compared with that of the Finnish patients outside the cohort.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Sami and non-Sami cancer patients were matched to other Finnish cancer patients for gender, age and year of diagnosis and for the site of cancer. An additional matching was done for the stage at diagnosis. Cancer-specific survival analyses were made using the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox regression modelling.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were 204 Sami and 391 non-Sami cancer cases in the cohort, 20,181 matched controls without matching with stage, and 7,874 stage-matched controls. In the cancer-specific analysis without stage variable, the hazard ratio for Sami was 1.05 (95% confidence interval 0.85-1.30) and for non-Sami 1.02 (0.86-1.20), indicating no difference between the survival of those groups and other patients in Finland. Likewise, when the same was done by also matching the stage, there was no difference in cancer survival.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Long distances to medical care or Sami ethnicity have no influence on the cancer patient survival in Northern Finland.
authors: Hjelt Institute, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. leena.soininen@fimnet.fi
authors: Leena
authors: L
authors: Soininen
authors: Arun
authors: A
authors: Pokhrel
authors: Tadek
authors: T
authors: Dyba
authors: Eero
authors: E
authors: Pukkala
authors: Timo
authors: T
authors: Hakulinen
mesh_terms: D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000401:mortality*; D044382:Population Groups; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012042:Registries; D016019:Survival Analysis