Lung cancer in Africans in a South African city population in transition

In South Africa, a study has been carried out on a series of African patients with lung cancer, who were admitted in 1994-1999 to King Edward VIII Hospital (2000 beds), and who lived in Durban (population includes approximately 650 000 resident Africans). In the urban context, Africans have recently experienced numerous changes in environmental, socio-economic and dietary factors and in other respects, thereby undergoing considerable westernization of lifestyle, compared with the past and the situation still prevailing among Africans in rural areas. In the period indicated, the mean annual number of patients admitted with lung cancer included 56 men and 9 women, thereby yielding standardized incidence rates of 15.5 and 3.5, respectively, per 100 000. While such data have their limitations, it is noteworthy that in the South African Cancer Registry for 1993-1995 the corresponding rates (pathology based) for African men and women for the whole country, rural and urban, were 11.7 and 2.6, respectively, per 100 000. In comparison, in the Registry the corresponding rates reported for white South African men and women were 22.3 and 12.3 per 100 000. With the ongoing transitional changes prevailing, most particularly concerning rises in smoking among adolescents, there is little chance of controlling further rises in the occurrence of the disease. It is significant that in the US, African Americans have been reported to have the highest rate for lung cancer in the world.