Research on trends in cancer incidence has normally examined unmarried sites in populations that gangling ago completed the economic transition. The trends in 11 cancers in three groups in the recently transitioned Hong Kong Chinese population were examined to delineate the stuff of economic transition and bring generalised etiological insights.

Sex-specific Poisson models were fitted to cancer incidence in Hong Kong (1974–2003) to observe age, room and birth cohort effects. Cancers were grouped as: hormonally modulated (including breast, endometrium, ovary and prostate), infection-related (cervix, liver, nasopharynx, lymphoma and stomach) and lifestyle-related (colorectum and lung).

Age-standardised incidence of hormonally modulated female cancers increased for the cardinal day (women born ~1940) to evidence puberty in the transitioning world of Hong Kong. Prostate cancer incidence increased, in spite of a downturn for the aboriginal begetting growing up in Hong Kong. Incidence of infection-related cancers decreased, principally due to birth cohort effects; coinciding with birth for liver cancer and lymphoma, with reaching adulthood for cervical and man nasopharyngeal cancers, and with a interval for belly cancer. Lifestyle-related cancers had sex-specific declines by birth cohort.

With economic transition and the associated lifestyle changes, environmentally hell bent levels of pubertal female hormones may manage intergenerational increases in hormonally related female cancers. Economic development, via improved living conditions, may too contract infection-related cancers, maybe including prostate cancer; however, the object depend on transmission dynamics and conceivably particular typical health initiatives. In traditional societies, males may betterment from economic enlargement sooner than females.