STATISTICAL CANCER FACTS FOR ASIAN AMERICANS

• Cancer has been the #1 killer of Asian American women since 1980.
• Cervical Cancer is a significant health problem in Korean American women.
• Breast cancer incidence in Japanese American women is approaching that of US Whites.
• 48% of Filipino and 41% of Korean women receive Pap smear tests within the recommended time. And 25% of Filipino and 38% of Korean women receive adequate and timely colorectal cancer screening.

ASIAN AMERICANS AND CANCER

• A major problem in Chinese women is that approximately 22% often use herbal remedies when diagnosed with breast cancer.
• Some studies indicate that approximately 79% of Asian-born Asian American women with breast cancer have greater proportion of tumors larger than 1cm at diagnosis.
• Young Asian women have lower participation in breast self examination (BSE) and pap tests.
• A significant number of Korean Americans have never heard of the Pap smear test.
• Southeast Asian women have higher invasive cervical cancer incidence rates and lower Pap testing frequencies than most other ethnic groups in the US.
• According to some studies, a large number of Vietnamese women cannot correctly explain what a Pap test is used for.
• The most commonly occurring cancer in Vietnamese females in the US is cervical cancer.
• Filipinos have the second poorest five-year survival rates for colon and rectal cancers of all US ethnic groups (second to American Indians)

Find more facts at:
http://iccnetwork.org/cancerfacts/ICC-CFS3.pdf

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