Cancer risk diversity in non-western migrants to Europe: An overview of the literature
Section snippets
Background
Studies on cancer risk in migrant populations have recently gained increased recognition, but still have rather heterogeneous study populations and methods applied. However, insights into risk diversity deduced from such studies contribute to our understanding of carcinogenesis and might help answer unclear aetiology questions.
Migration has become an important phenomenon in Western Europe in terms of population changes and the composition of society during the past decades. In 2005, Western and
Inclusion criteria of studies
We included studies focussing mainly or partly on cancer incidence and mortality in adult migrants from non-western countries, living in the industrialised countries of the European Union, published in English between 1990 and April 2010. Studies were identified by searching pubmed and other established scientific databases in combination with the following keywords: cancer + ethnicity/ethnic minority/(im)migrant(s)/foreign(ers)/country of birth. A further inclusion criterion was a comparison of
Findings
Table 2 provides an overview of all findings according to country of study, population of interest and cancer site, expressed in tendencies.
The all-cancer comparison of most studies showed in particular on average a lower cancer risk for first-generation migrants from non-western countries in terms of incidence and mortality, although there were some studies that did not reveal significant differences, sometimes obviously due to small study cohorts. However, male subjects originating from West
Discussion
Our findings suggest that migrants from non-western countries were more likely to develop cancers that are related to infectious diseases, compared with the general population of their industrialised host country. This is especially true for cancers of the oral cavity, nasopharynx, stomach, liver, gallbladder, cervix uteri, prostate and lymphomas. In contrast, almost all studies found lower risks for cancers that are strongly related to a ‘western’ lifestyle (poor diet, physical inactivity,
Conflict of interest statement
None declared.
Acknowledgement
Melina Arnold’s work has partly been funded by EU SANCO (MEHO project: Migrant and Ethnic Minorities Health Observatory; Contract number: 2005122).
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