Disparities in Cancer Care

New grants from the U.S. Department of Defense and American Cancer Society will fund work by two Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center teams focused on understanding and eliminating prostate cancer health disparities.

Pathologic complete response and event-free survival was not found to be significantly affected by race among patients with high-risk breast cancer who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy; however, disparities were observed among patients who did not achieve a pCR.

Expanding the definition of personalized medicine to include social determinants of health disparities is needed to ensure patients with cancer receive optimal care, said Karen Winkfield, MD, PhD, who added that lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic have sparked a new wave of enthusiasm to advocate for change and bridge existing gaps in oncology.

Non-Hispanic Black women are approximately 40% more like to require a visit to the emergency department after breast cancer surgery, and Hispanic women are 11% more likely compared with non-Hispanic White women, according to results from a population-based study published in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.

Ontada, a McKesson business focused on real-world data and evidence, clinical education and provider technology, announced the launch of Health Outcomes Powered by Evidence Studies.

Participating in a clinical trial is the most effective way to gain access to new and potentially better ways to treat cancer, yet we’ve seen a decrease in the number of African American and Hispanic patients participating in oncology trials in 2003 to 2016, compared with 1996 to 2002.

Raymond U. Osarogiagbon, MD, discusses geographic disparities in lung cancer mortality rates across the United States.

Existing racial and socioeconomic disparities among patients with T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma continue to lead to obstacles with access for newly available treatment options.

Edward Chu, MD, MMS, discusses ongoing efforts to address disparities in lung cancer at Montefiore and Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Chris Labaki, MD, and Quoc-Dien Trinh, MD, discuss their research on the decline in cancer screenings during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the recovery of these tests, and potential existing disparities to be addressed.

“Smarter screening” and a better understanding of the breast cancers women of color are more likely to develop are all crucial to helping these patients survive this disease at the same rates as their White counterparts.

Jyoti Malhotra, MD, MPH, discusses the rationale to evaluate racial disparities in lung cancer survivors.

Dr. George and Dr. Hurley discuss the data generated from their study on the correlation between deleterious variants in genes and the development of hereditary breast and ovarian cancers in populations throughout the Caribbean.

Racial minorities with limited-stage small cell lung cancer, including African American and Asian patients, were found to have more favorable survival outcomes compared with White patients, which suggests that race is associated with survival in this disease.

Rodolfo Gutierrez, MD, discusses racial disparities in cancer care and interventions to encourage increased participation of the Hispanic and Latinx community on clinical trials.

Mark E. Sherman, MD, discusses research efforts evaluating immune responses and risk of TNBC and implications for higher rates of disease among African American women.

Holly Pederson, MD, discusses the importance of ancestrally-unbiased polygenic risk assessment in patients with breast cancer.

Ryan Nguyen, DO, discusses enrollment disparities in pivotal clinical trials in oncology.

The issue of disparities in cancer is multifactorial, as it can cover not only race, ethnic, and cultural issues, but also gender identification.

Julia Blanter, MD, discusses the risk of developing distant metastases after initial breast cancer diagnosis among Black vs White women.

Kent Hoskins, MD, discusses the impact of race on breast cancer outcomes.