Cancer incidence rate in Japanese in Japan and in the United States from the Cancer Incidence in Five Continents

In order to make a comparison of cancer incidence rates between Japanese in Japan and those in the United States, we abstracted the age-standardized incidence rates (ASRs) from the Cancer Incidence in Five Continents Vol. I–X (CI5). The International Agency for Research on Cancer provides the CI5 databases on the incidence of cancer recorded by cancer registries worldwide (regional and national). We used ASRs for Japanese from the following cancer registries: Miyagi, Nagasaki and Osaka in Japan, and California–Los Angeles, California–San Francisco and Hawaii in the United States of America from the CI5 database. Furthermore, we included the ASRs in the United States (SEER 9 registries and Hawaii). Year at cancer diagnosis was from 1959 to 2007 in Vol. I–X in CI5; however, the years were a little different in the other registries as shown in Table 1. ... Figure 1 shows the ASRs for all cancers coded as C00-96 (ICD10) for males. All cancer registries reported gradually increasing ASRs, while the rates in Nagasaki, San Francisco for Japanese, SEER for black and Hawaii for white are decreasing since Vol. VII or VIII around 1990. The ASR in SEER for black was the highest in Vol. I–X compared with the ASRs in the other registries studied. The ASRs in SEER and Hawaii for white were next highest. ASRs of Japanese in Japan were slightly higher than those of Japanese in the USA. Figure 2 shows the ASRs for all cancers for females. The ASRs for females increased in Vol. I–X, and there was no recent increase in ASRs, unlike males. The fact that the ASRs in SEER for white and black, and Hawaii for white were high is common to both males and females. Hawaii for white reported the highest ASR. In comparison with males, the ASRs of Japanese in the USA were higher than those of Japanese in Japan for female.