Background: Esophageal cancer (EC) has been ranked as the 8th most incident cancer and the 6th most common cause of death from cancer in the world. Hence, the primary aim of this study was to assess the age-standardized incidence (ASI) rates by histology type of EC in Puerto Rico (PR) and contrast these statistics with those of US Hispanics (USH), non-Hispanic Whites (NHW), and non-Hispanic Blacks (NHB) in the US.

Methods: We applied the direct method to compute the ASI rates for EC (per 100,000 persons) by histology type during 2000 to 2004, using the World Standard Population. The age specific relative risks (RR) and the overall comparison of two standardized rates (SRR) were estimated with 95% confidence intervals to determine relative differences among the study groups, during the same period of time, using the Poisson regression model and PR as reference.

Results: Overall, in PR during the years 2000–2004, the ASI rates (x 100,000 persons) for all EC were 16.8; among male 36.1 and among females 11.6. The risk of developing any histology type of EC in PR was higher than NHW for both sexes (SRRmales: 1.14, 95%CI: 1.02–1.28; SRRfemales: 1.27, 95%CI: 1.06–1.51) and USH (SRRmales: 1.45, 95%CI: 1.21–1.76; SRRfemales: 2.39, 95%CI: 1.74–3.35). PR also showed 2 to 3 times the risks of developing esophageal squamous cell carcinomas (ESCC) compared to NHW and USH for both sexes (p<0.05); only a risk reduction was observed when Puerto Rican males were compared to NHB males (p<0.05). Inversely, PR showed lower risks of developing esophageal adenocarcinomas (EAC) in comparison to NHW for both sexes (SRRmales: 0.29, 95%CI: 0.22–0.37; SRRfemales: 0.36, 95%CI: 0.21–0.55) and USH (SRRmales: 0.50, 95%CI: 0.35–0.70; SRRfemales: 0.71, 95%CI: 0.36–1.40).

Conclusions: Differences in EC incidence rates exist overall and by histology type among Puerto Ricans, NHW, NHB, and USH. Future research is warranted to elucidate the effect of the different risk factors and genetic predisposition for each histology type of EC in PR and among US racial/ethnic populations.

Citation Information: Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2011;20(10 Suppl):B82.

Copyright © September 18, 2011, American Association for Cancer Research
2011