Recent changes in lung cancer incidence for south Asians: a population based register study

In Britain the incidence of lung cancer among south Asians (Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi) is much lower than in the rest of the population.1 In the UK south Asian population, however, it is the commonest cancer for men and the second commonest for women.2 Little has been reported on lung cancer trends among south Asians in Britain. We explored trends in lung cancer incidence from 1990 to 1999 in Leicester (22% of residents classified as south Asian in 1991 census). We identified cases of lung cancer diagnosed in Leicester residents between 1 January 1990 and 31 December 1999 from the Trent Cancer Registry. Ethnicity data were not available for all patients, so we used software assessing forename and surname to classify patients as south Asian or non-south Asian,3 with visual inspection of the data to increase accuracy. We assessed deprivation using the Townsend index. The local research ethics committee approved the study. Population …