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Background: Using data from the U.S. National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program, we analyzed stomach carcinoma incidence patterns by both histologic type and anatomic site., Methods: We calculated age-adjusted (2000 U.S. standard) rates for 1978 to 2005, and for five time periods from 1978-1983 through 2001-2005 according to histologic type and anatomic site, separately and jointly. We also analyzed rates by race, gender, and age group., Results: During 1978 to 2005, more than 54,000 stomach carcinoma cases were diagnosed among residents of the nine Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results areas. Total stomach carcinoma rates declined by 34% from the 1978-1983 to the 2001-2005 time periods. By histologic type, intestinal rates decreased consistently, whereas those for diffuse rates increased through 2000 and declined in recent years. By anatomic site, cardia rates increased during earlier years and then decreased, whereas rates for all other sites declined. When considered jointly by histologic type and anatomic site, intestinal carcinoma rates decreased for all sites except the cardia; diffuse rates increased through 2000 and decreased in recent years for all sites except the overlapping/nonspecified sites. Both diffuse and intestinal rates were lowest among whites, intermediate among blacks, and highest among the other, primarily Asian, races, with only modest gender differences for the diffuse type. In contrast, cardia carcinoma rates were highest among whites and were notably higher among males, especially whites among whom the male/female rate ratio was five to one., Conclusions: Stomach carcinoma incidence patterns differ by histologic type, anatomic site, race, gender, and age, suggesting that etiologic heterogeneity should be pursued in future research.

We used data from a breast cancer pilot study carried out in Kerala, India in 1997, for which organochlorine levels were measured in three biological media, blood serum, breast adipose tissue, and gluteal adipose tissue, of 37 fasting breast cancer cases (pretreatment). Our objective was to investigate the relationships between organochlorine concentrations in different biological media. Gas-liquid chromatography determined serum, breast adipose, and gluteal adipose tissue levels of dichlorodiphenyltricholorethane, dichlorodiphenyldichloroethane, beta-benzene hexachloride, and polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners, PCB-153 and PCB-180. Correlation plots were made and Spearman correlation coefficients (r) calculated for breast adipose tissue versus serum, gluteal adipose tissue versus serum, and breast adipose versus gluteal adipose tissue. We also examined paired ratios of all summary statistics. There were strong correlations among serum, breast adipose tissue, and gluteal adipose tissue concentrations for most organochlorines analyzed, one exception being gluteal versus serum for PCB-153. The correlations for all other comparisons ranged from r = 0.65 to 0.94. Serum (ng/g) versus adipose ratios approached 1:1 for most of the organochlorine pesticide comparisons and did not vary by summary statistic. To our knowledge, this is the first study to use three different media from fasting subjects and to comprehensively investigate the relationship between organochlorines measured across the three media for both organochlorine pesticides and PCBs. These data indicate that blood serum reflects the present body burden of a range of organochlorines to the same extent as adipose tissue, and they support the view that serum may be collected in lieu of adipose tissue to obtain similar information. However, such measurements are a combination of both recent exposures and past exposures, which have metabolized slowly and may still persist. Therefore, investigators should use caution when assigning a level as lifetime body burden.