Nasopharyngeal cancer among young people in the United States: racial variations by cell type.

U. S. mortality and incidence statistics for nasopharyngeal cancer showed a fourfold excess risk of sarcomas in white children under age 10, and a fourfold to sevenfold excess of carcinomas in teen-age blacks. Mortality from nasopharyngeal carcinomas in young people was greater in the South than in the North, with the excess mortality in blacks linked to rural residence and low socioeconomic status. These and other characteristics of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in young persons suggested that environmental (perhaps infectious) agents are involved in this age group. These patterns contrasted with nasopharyngeal carcinomas developing after age 25, when the rates predominated in Chinese Americans. Nasopharyngeal cancer in the United States had three age peaks, with racial and epidemiologic distinctions that seemed to reflect different etiologies.