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The prognostic effect of ethnicity for gastric and esophageal cancer: the population-based experience in British Columbia, Canada Bashash, Morteza; Hislop, T G; Shah, Amil M; Le, Nhu; Brooks-Wilson, Angela; Bajdik, Chris D

Abstract

Background: Gastric and esophageal cancers are among the most lethal human malignancies. Their epidemiology is geographically diverse. This study compares the survival of gastric and esophageal cancer patients among several ethnic groups including Chinese, South Asians, Iranians and Others in British Columbia (BC), Canada. Methods: Data were obtained from the population-based BC Cancer Registry for patients diagnosed with invasive esophageal and gastric cancer between 1984 and 2006. The ethnicity of patients was estimated according to their names and categorized as Chinese, South Asian, Iranian or Other. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to estimate the effect of ethnicity adjusted for patient sex and age, disease histology, tumor location, disease stage and treatment. Results: The survival of gastric cancer patients was significantly different among ethnic groups. Chinese patients showed better survival compared to others in univariate and multivariate analysis. The survival of esophageal cancer patients was significantly different among ethnic groups when the data was analyzed by a univariate test (p = 0.029), but not in the Cox multivariate model adjusted for other patient and prognostic factors. Conclusions: Ethnicity may represent underlying genetic factors. Such factors could influence host-tumor interactions by altering the tumor's etiology and therefore its chance of spreading. Alternatively, genetic factors may determine response to treatments. Finally, ethnicity may represent non-genetic factors that affect survival. Differences in survival by ethnicity support the importance of ethnicity as a prognostic factor, and may provide clues for the future identification of genetic or lifestyle factors that underlie these observations.

Item Metadata

Title
The prognostic effect of ethnicity for gastric and esophageal cancer: the population-based experience in British Columbia, Canada
Creator
Bashash, Morteza; Hislop, T G; Shah, Amil M; Le, Nhu; Brooks-Wilson, Angela; Bajdik, Chris D
Publisher
BioMed Central
Date Issued
2011-05-09
Description
Background: Gastric and esophageal cancers are among the most lethal human malignancies. Their epidemiology is geographically diverse. This study compares the survival of gastric and esophageal cancer patients among several ethnic groups including Chinese, South Asians, Iranians and Others in British Columbia (BC), Canada. Methods: Data were obtained from the population-based BC Cancer Registry for patients diagnosed with invasive esophageal and gastric cancer between 1984 and 2006. The ethnicity of patients was estimated according to their names and categorized as Chinese, South Asian, Iranian or Other. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to estimate the effect of ethnicity adjusted for patient sex and age, disease histology, tumor location, disease stage and treatment. Results: The survival of gastric cancer patients was significantly different among ethnic groups. Chinese patients showed better survival compared to others in univariate and multivariate analysis. The survival of esophageal cancer patients was significantly different among ethnic groups when the data was analyzed by a univariate test (p = 0.029), but not in the Cox multivariate model adjusted for other patient and prognostic factors. Conclusions: Ethnicity may represent underlying genetic factors. Such factors could influence host-tumor interactions by altering the tumor's etiology and therefore its chance of spreading. Alternatively, genetic factors may determine response to treatments. Finally, ethnicity may represent non-genetic factors that affect survival. Differences in survival by ethnicity support the importance of ethnicity as a prognostic factor, and may provide clues for the future identification of genetic or lifestyle factors that underlie these observations.
Genre
Article
Type
Text
Language
eng
Date Available
2016-02-01
Provider
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Rights
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
DOI
10.14288/1.0223870
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/56820
Affiliation
Medicine, Department of; Population and Public Health (SPPH), School of; Science, Faculty of; Statistics, Department of; Non UBC; Medicine, Faculty of
Citation
BMC Cancer. 2011 May 09;11(1):164
Publisher DOI
10.1186/1471-2407-11-164
Peer Review Status
Reviewed
Scholarly Level
Faculty
Copyright Holder
Bashash et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
Rights URI
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)