Racial Disparities in Cancer Survival Persist for Specific Types of Breast, Ovarian and Prostate Cancers
July 20, 2009
Despite uniform staging, treatment and follow-up, disparities in cancer mortality for African Americans held true in a recent study of patients diagnosed with pre- and post-menopausal breast and advanced ovarian and prostate carcinomas.
The Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) studied the outcomes of 19,457 adult patients diagnosed with cancer to determine whether racial survival disparities persist when clinical, demographic and treatment variables are consistent. The study by Kathy S. Albain, et al, “Racial Disparities in Cancer Survival Among Randomized Clinical Trials Patients,” was published in the July 13, 2009, Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The researchers looked for associations between race and overall survival by grouping results from 35 SWOG phase III clinical trials based on diseases with similar histology and stage. They then controlled for prognostic, treatment and socioeconomic factors.
After adjusting for prognostic factors, the authors found that race was associated with increased mortality from early-stage pre-menopausal breast cancer, early-stage post-menopausal breast cancer, advanced-stage ovarian cancer and advanced-stage prostate cancer. However, African Americans with lung cancer, colon cancer, lymphoma, leukemia or myeloma in the study had a similar survival rate to other study participants.
African Americans in the study faced a 68 percent vs. 77 percent, not reached, overall survival rate for early stage and pre-menopausal breast cancer; 52 percent (10.2 years) vs. 62 percent (13.5 years) for early-stage, post-menopausal breast cancer; 13 percent (1.3 years) vs. 17 percent (2.3 years) for advanced ovarian cancer; and 6 percent (2.2 years) vs. 9 percent (2.7 years) for advanced prostate cancer.
“Unrecognized interactions of tumor biological, hormonal and/or inherited host factors may be contributing to differential survival outcomes by race in sex-specific malignancies,” the authors concluded.
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