Tufts Medical Center is located in the heart of Boston’s Chinatown.
Boston Magazine reports the hospital has seen an inordinate number of rare cancer cases of late.
Doctors there have found cancer in the upper part of the throat, Nasopharyngeal carcinoma, in more than 1 out of ten cancer screenings.
Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is a cancer that only strikes 1 out of 100,000 people world wide. So why so many cases at Tufts?
It seems the cancer is not so rare in Southeast China likely due to diet and exposure to viruses. Many of the residents in Boston Chinatown come from Southeast China.
Tufts holds free NPC screenings three times a year and is making a greater effort to do outreach in Chinatown.
“This is our community. If we’re not addressing health issues here, something’s lacking,” says Laurel Leslie of Tufts.
You can read more about the outreach efforts at Tufts in Boston Magazine.