CANCER INCIDENCE IN TURIN - THE EFFECT OF MIGRATION

Aims and Background: Studies on migrant populations have been of great value in clarifying the role of environmental factors in cancer occur rence. Most of them consider migrants from other countries or continen ts. Turin, the target territory of this study, was an important area o f internal migration initially from the East, and more recently from s outhern Italy. Methods: The study compared incidence rates (age-standa rdized) of the native population, of the migrants and incidence rates of the Cancer Registries located in the four main areas of origin. Res ults: Overall incidence rates in migrants from southern Italy were int ermediate compared with those of the stable populations of the South a nd the North. The same effect was not true for people from the North-E ast, who migrated in earlier decades. In this population, migration to wards lower-incidence areas did not reduce cancer incidence. Migrants from the South showed a significant increase in intestinal, breast, an d tobacco-related tumors compared to the stable southern population. N o effect of migration was found for cancer of the mouth, pharynx, esop hagus, stomach or corpus uteri. Incidence of liver cancer in migrant s outhern males was significantly different from the stable and the nati ve north-western population. Conclusions: The results, based on incide nce data, validated previous findings based on mortality data on the e ffect of Italian Internal migrations and showed that migrants underwen t changes in some environmental exposures. In particular, migrants fro m the South to the North of Italy came into contact with new risk fact ors, with an increase in occurrence of cancer.