RNS: Rectal cancer, May 13, 2008
TIME: 1:59
URL: http://www2.med.umich.edu/prmc/media/newsroom/details.cfm?ID=234
U-M Health Minute: Today’s top health issues and medical research
Blacks not receiving chemotherapy for rectal cancer, despite seeing cancer specialists, U-M study finds
Suggested lead: A study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center is offering new insight into one of the reasons why African Americans with rectal cancer have a much higher mortality rates than white Americans who suffer from this disease. Here’s Andi McDonnell with more.
Black patients and white patients are seeing rectal cancer specialists at similar rates, but blacks are still less likely to receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy, according to a new study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The study – appearing online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute – found blacks were 23 percent less likely to receive chemotherapy for rectal cancer and 12 percent less likely to receive radiation therapy than whites.
Study author Dr. Arden Morris (M.D., M.P.H.), an assistant professor of surgery at the U-M Medical School and chief of general surgery at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, explains…
“The ramification of the disparity in use of chemotherapy and radiation for rectal cancer patients, for African American rectal cancer patients specifically, is decreased survival. Chemotherapy and radiation are known to improve survival at a rate of about 20- percent, which is a lot. Coincidentally, that’s about the same rate, that’s about the same difference in survival between African Americans and white Americans.”
Researcher suspect the lack of treatment in blacks is largely driving the decreased survival.
Morris tells us…
“Now that we have evidence, based on this study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center that step one, the visit with the oncologist, is not actually different between these two populations, African Americans and white Americans, our next step is going to be to try to better understand what are the human factors that are contributing to this discrepancy.”
Her next study will include focus groups of people who have been treated for colorectal cancer to understand how they reached the decision to have chemotherapy or whether they feel they made a decision at all. The researchers suspect treatment discrepancies may be due in part to social differences and priorities among populations, such as patient preferences or access to resources including transportation or family care.
Andi McDonnell, U-M Health System News
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