Bronchial cancer in Hong Kong 1976-1977

Abstract

Summary.-Bronchial cancer is a disease of high and increasing annual incidence in Hong Kong, especially in women, whose age-specific death rates from this cause are amongst the highest in the world.A case-control study of the relationship of bronchial cancer with smoking was carried out during 1976-77, taking particular note of the histological type of the tumour. Two hundred and eight male and 189 female patients were interviewed, covering about half the total number of cases of bronchial cancer registered as dead from the disease in Hong Kong during the period of the survey. The association with smoking was more evident in males than in females, and in squamous and small-cell types, as a group, than in adenocarcinoma. Forty-four per cent of the women with bronchial cancer were non-smokers, their predominant tumour being adenocarcinoma, and in them no association could be detected with place of residence or occupation. There was no strong evidence of an association with the use of kerosene or gas for cooking; 23 did not use kerosene. The cause of the cancer in these nonsmoking women remains unknown.

Associations between cancer incidence and alcohol/cigarette consumption among five ethnic groups in Hawaii

“…The predicted effect of cigarette consumption on lung-cancer incidence was improved by restriction to only epidermoid and smallcell types (Table V) again as might be expected (Kreyberg, 1962). The decrease in the regression coefficient with lung cancer when sex was controlled in the multiple regression analysis may be due in part to the relatively high lung-cancer rates which we and others have observed among Chinese women in spite of their low rate of smoking (MacLennan et al, 1977;Chan et al, 1979).…”

Lung cancer in Hong Kong Chinese: Mortality and histological types, 1973-1982

“…In an earlier series by Chan et al (1979) Lee & T'so (1963) and in more detail with those of Chan & MacLennan (1977).…”

“…Although the concept that adenocarcinoma is not related to smoking has been popular since Doll et al (1957) and Kreyberg (1962) published their reports, this view has been disputed by other investigators (Kennedy, 1973;Belcher, 1975 (Chan et al, 1979;MacLennan et al, 1977). In fact, 61% of the females with adenocarcinoma did not smoke (Lam et al, 1983).…”

Smoking, passive smoking and histological types in lung cancer in Hong Kong Chinese women

“…The present study was a case control study on lung cancer in Hong Kong Chinese women with a larger number of subjects included than in the two previous local case control studies (Chan et al, 1979;Koo et al, 1984). All our cases were pathologically confirmed, unlike these two previous studies which included cases confirmed only by clinicoradiological criteria.…”

“…The most common cell type in males is squamous cell carcinoma (33.3%) and in females, adenocarcinoma (49.6%) (Kung et al, 1984). A case control study in 1976-1977 confirmed the relationship between lung cancer and smoking in males, but in females about half the lung cancer patients were found to be non-smokers, of whom two thirds were suffering from adenocarcinoma (Chan et al, 1979). Further studies on passive smoking and other risk factors have been carried out in Hong Kong but they failed to throw much light on the causes of lung cancer in never smoking females (Chan & Fung, 1982;Lam et al, 1983;Koo et al, 1984;Koo et al, 1985).…”