Dr. Malhotra on the Rationale to Evaluate Racial Disparities in Lung Cancer Survivors

Jyoti Malhotra, MD, MPH, medical oncologist, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, assistant professor of medicine, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, discusses the rationale to evaluate racial disparities in lung cancer survivors.

Racial disparities exist throughout the treatment of patients with lung cancer, Malhotra says. These disparities are present in the setting of follow-up care and surveillance, which is a critical part of lung cancer survivorship, Malhotra explains. Follow-up care allows survivors to receive disease-related symptom management and routine screening for early detection of recurrence, Malhotra adds.

During the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting, findings from a cross-sectional study of racial differences in follow-up care of lung cancer survivors through New Jersey’s statewide cancer registry were presented in a virtual poster. The results showed that more non-Hispanic White survivors received a surveillance scan within 1 year compared with non-Hispanic Black survivors (P = .02), Malhotra concludes.