Nasopharyngeal carcinoma: opportunities for international collaborative research in Malaysia and Hawaii

Malaysia and Hawaii have several advantages for epidemiologic and laboratory studies on nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Both have multiethnic populations with different incidence rates of nasopharyngeal carcinoma and different life-styles. Malaysia has large populations of Chinese, Malaya, and Indians, and the number of cases of nasopharyngeal carcinoma at any one time is comparatively large. Incidence rates for 1968--72, age-standardized to the World population, for Guangdong hua (Cantonese Chinese) in Malaysia were 24.3/100,000 for males and 12.0/100,000 for females. In Hawaii, the ratio was 12.9/100,000 for males and 6.7/100,000 for females. The small number of cases in Hawaii would require that research in that State be conducted in collaboration with research elsewhere with larger case numbers.