Immigrant communities have significantly higher rates of stomach and liver cancer, according to new evidence that has led to a push for people of all backgrounds to get equal access to cancer education, screening and care in the new strategy to manage the disease over the next five years.

Research led by the University of Sydney and Cancer Council NSW’s Daffodil Centre found people who had immigrated from countries with higher incidences of certain cancers were more likely to be diagnosed with those cancers once in Australia.

The study examined national incidence data for stomach, liver and cervical cancer diagnosed between 2005 and 2014.

Incidences of liver cancer in people born in Asia, considered the world leader in the disease, were notably high. Rates in those born in Vietnam were more than five times those born in Australia, with higher incidences also reported in Chinese immigrants.

While the incidence of stomach cancer in the general population has fallen by 22 per cent over the past two decades, immigrants from South America, north-east Asia and Polynesia, where rates are comparably higher, were diagnosed at twice the rate of the Australian-born population.

Loading

“When we look at liver cancer and stomach cancer, those are typically infections that take a while to start having an impact and developing into cancer, and we don’t have [early] screening that can help those at the moment,” said Dr Eleonora Feletto, a co-author of the study.

“The very fact that we are seeing it in migrant groups does suggest that it is a higher risk that we need to be engaging with. Data like this shows where a liver cancer awareness campaign, for example, is best directed.”

The most common cancers in NSW are prostate, breast, bowel, melanoma and lung. Liver cancer is the only major cancer with increasing rates of diagnosis and mortality in Australia, largely attributed to rising levels of obesity and type 2 diabetes, which are both risk factors.