摘要：Cancer patterns in different racial/ethnic groups in different areas were presented at a symposium in the 14th International Scientific Meeting of the International Epidemiological Association; Koreans in Korea and Los Angeles, Japanese in Japan and Sao Paulo, and Chinese, Indians and Malays in Singapore. The findings from these descriptive epidemiology suggested the effects of environmental factors in the etiology of various cancers appear during relatively short period at least in a generation. Comparison of hormonal profiles in populations at the extremes of incidence of prostate cancer, which shows one of the remarkable racial-thnic variation, indicated that the difference may be due to variation in testosterone secretion and testosterone metabolism. It was also suggested that these hormonal differences might be genetically regulated. Two case-control studies of breast cancer in Indonesia and Japan suggested that the risk factors for the disease are almost the same in the two countries but the investigators found large differences in the stage and age at diagnosis of the cancer. J Epidemiol , 1996 ; 6 : S181-S182.
