Histologically Diagnosed Cancers in 693 Indians of the United States, 1950–65

Frequency ratios of 694 histologically diagnosed cancers in 693 U.S. Indians were tabulated by the primary site for each sex. An age-correction factor was applied to validate comparison of data from the Indians with those from U.S. whites. The data showed that cancer of the gallbladder and biliary tract was much more frequent in Indians than in whites. Cancer of uterine cervix and tumors in salivary glands (including mixed tumor) were also more frequent in the Indians; cancers of stomach, intestine and rectum, prostate gland, and kidney were in the same general range of frequency in both groups. In comparison, cancers of lung and bronchus, breast, and urinary bladder were comparatively infrequent in Indians. The pattern of cancer distribution in children and youths resembled that in whites. The distribution of the histologic types was not unusual in the Indians, except that 5 of the 8 cancers in urinary bladder were of squamous cell type, and only 3 were of transitional cell type; basal cell cancer of skin was about 4 times as frequent as squamous cell cancer of skin.