London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

South Asian women in Britain are less likely to get breast cancer and have a higher survival rate if they do contract the disease, new research has revealed.

The survey showed the annual rate of new breast cancers among South Asian women was close to a third lower than for other women.

And - taking into account other causes of death - more than 70 percent of Asian women were still alive five years after being diagnosed with the disease, compared to less than 67 percent of other women.

But Asian women were also more likely to be struck with the disease at a lower age than other ethnic groups.

Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) found breast cancer patients with roots in South Asia were much younger than their white or Afro-Caribbean counterparts.

Asian women had an average age of 52 at time of diagnosis compared to nearly 63 for the other two groups.

And three times as many women under 40 from the Asian group were diagnosed with breast cancer.

LSHTM Professor of Epidemiology Michel Coleman said that more research would be needed to explain the differences in the occurrence of the disease. But he added that diet and lifestyle may play a role.

Prof. Coleman said: "Affluence is known to boost health and survival and, typically survival rates were around nine percent higher among the most affluent groups of all women.

"But even among the poor and disadvantaged, survival rates were three to eight percent higher in Asian women."

He added: "We can speculate that differential access to treatment or differences in tumour biology, or both, may contribute to the differences in survival."

And he said that the results could be useful in tailoring health services to the South Asian population, which is the largest ethnic group in the UK at three percent of the population.

Using data supplied by the National Cancer Registry, the research team tracked the survival of nearly 116,000 women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer in England and Wales between 1986 and 1990. The progress of the women was monitored until 1995.

The results of the survey were published in this week's edition of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.