The short answer is - I don’t know if ( primary ) brain tumours are commoner in Asians, and I suspect no-one else knows for sure.


There are over 200 different types of cancer which can arise in any body organ – so there will never be a single cure. The simplest definition is “ a purposeless proliferation of cells “. Cancers do vary in frequency round the world. In the UK the commonest types are lung, large bowel, and breast. In the Philippines it’s breast, lung and liver.


By FAR the commonest brain tumours are the result of “ secondary “ spread in the bloodstream from a “ primary “ elsewhere, like lung or breast. These cancers are common both in UK and Philippines ( but tend to be more advanced / likely to have spread when diagnosed in Philippines.


Even primary brain tumours may be of different types, and degrees of malignancy. They tend to remain confined to within the skull, and are either localised ( “ meningioma “ ) or invade and destroy ( “ glioblastoma “ ).


Because they are so rare it’s hard to compare incidence ( frequency ) in different countries, especially as diagnosis requires highly specialised techniques not available everywhere. In most cases we don’t know the cause – a tiny minority may be related to genetic conditions, radiation, previous cancers elsewhere, or weakened immunity. Mobile phones have not been convincingly proved to cause primary brain tumours ( and they’re so rare anyway that even double the risk would still be very small ).