Asian-Americans, both those born in the United States and new immigrants, have distinctive patterns of cancer incidence that doctors should consider when treating them, researchers have found.

A report appearing Wednesday in the journal CA is "one of the most comprehensive summaries of cancer among Asian-Americans," according to the American Cancer Society, which publishes the journal. The report is based on information on cancer cases collected by the state of California from 2000 to 2002 and focuses on five ethnic groups: Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. The state has a large Asian population, 3.7 million, and carefully sorts its cancer data by ethnic group.

When all cancers are combined, Asian-Americans actually have lower rates than other groups in the United States. But cancer is still a major cause of death for Asians, killing more of them than heart disease. Different groups appear prone to different types of cancer.

Groups that have been in the United States the longest are likely to develop cancers that are most common there, like breast and colorectal cancer, although their rates are still significantly below those of non-Hispanic whites. The risk of those cancers may be increased by obesity, inactivity, high alcohol intake and diets rich in fat and low in fruits and vegetables, and the rates in Asians seem to rise gradually as they adopt more American habits.