Early onset of nasopharyngeal cancer in Asian/Pacific Islander Americans revealed by age-specific analysis

Abstract

Purpose: Incidence of nasopharyngeal cancer is substantially higher in Asian/Pacific Islanders (APIs) than other racial groups. Examining age-specific incidence patterns by racial group and histology could inform disease etiology.

Methods: We analyzed data from 2000 through 2019 from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program to compare age-specific incidence rates of nasopharyngeal cancer in non-Hispanic (NH) Blacks, NH APIs, and Hispanics to NH Whites using incidence rate ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CIs).

Results: NH APIs showed the highest incidence of nasopharyngeal cancer across all histologic subtypes and almost all age groups. The racial differences were most pronounced in the age 30-39 group; relative to NH Whites, NH APIs were 15.24 (95% CI: 11.69-20.05), 17.26 (95% CI: 12.56-24.07), and 8.91 (95% CI: 6.79-11.48) times as likely to have differentiated non-keratinizing, undifferentiated non-keratinizing, and keratinizing squamous cell tumors, respectively.

Conclusions: These findings suggest an earlier onset of nasopharyngeal cancer among NH APIs, which highlight unique early life exposure to critical nasopharyngeal cancer risk factors as well as genetic predisposition in this high-risk population.

Keywords: Age-specific patterns; Incidence; Nasopharyngeal cancer; Racial disparities; SEER.