Affluent people are more likely to suffer skin and thyroid cancer, while poorer people fall victim to liver and cervical

Class divide: More affluent people are likely to suffer from skin cancer – including melanoma – thyroid and testicular cancers

A person’s wealth is a key indicator of the type of cancer they are likely to suffer from, scientists say.

U.S. researchers have discovered that certain types of cancers are prevalent in different classes.

They say more affluent people are likely to suffer from melanoma, thyroid and testicular cancers.

Poorer people, on the other hand, are more likely to be diagnosed with cancers of the larynx, cervix, penis, and liver.

And while these people are less likely to be diagnosed with cancer, they are more likely to die from the disease.

Dr Francis Boscoe, of the New York State Cancer Registry, said: ‘At first glance, the effects seem to cancel one another out.

‘When it comes to cancer, the poor are more likely to die of the disease while the affluent are more likely to die with the disease.’

The study, published online in the journal CANCER, looked at the richest and poorest neighbourhoods covering over two fifths of the U.S. population.

Researchers assigned nearly three million tumours diagnosed between 2005 and 2009 into one of four groupings based on the poverty rate of the residential census at the time of diagnosis.

Certain cancers – Kaposi sarcoma and cancers of the larynx, cervix, penis, and liver – were more likely in the poorest neighborhoods, while other cancers – melanoma, thyroid and testis – were more likely in the wealthiest neighborhoods.

Dr Boscoe added: ‘Our hope is that our paper will illustrate the value and necessity of doing this routinely in the future.’

New research: The study found those who were worse off were more prone to suffering liver cancer, as well as forms of the disease affecting the larynx, penis and cervix

Previous research from UCSF found that well-off women are more likely to suffer from skin cancer. In the United States, more than 90 per cent of the most deadly skin cancers – malignant melanomas – occur in the white population.

The researchers found that young women are at highest risk for malignant melanoma if they live in neighbourhoods that are both more well-to-do and sunnier.

Other research from The Christie Hospital in Manchester found that middle-class people are significantly more likely to develop breast and skin cancer than the less well off.

The researchers suggested that career women delaying having children and exposing themselves more to the sun on foreign holidays are thought to be behind the gap.

They added that social deprivation is linked to lung and cervical cancer, as less affluent people are more likely to smoke and miss smear tests.

Written by Anna Hodgekiss for The Daily Mail, May 27, 2014.

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