Black Women Less Likely Than Women of Other Races and Ethnicities to Survive Endometrial Cancer
Non-Hispanic black women with endometrial cancer had worse outcomes than women of other racial/ethnic groups diagnosed with the same subtype of endometrial cancer and at the same stage of disease, according to a study published by Cote et al in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
“Endometrial cancer is the most commonly diagnosed gynecologic cancer in the United States, and incidence rates have been rising for many years,” said Michele L. Cote, PhD, Associate Professor of Oncology at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne State University School of Medicine. “We set out to investigate whether the increasing incidence and mortality from endometrial cancer are equally distributed by race/ethnicity and endometrial cancer subtype.”
Study Findings
“The most significant finding was that non-Hispanic black women had poorer outcomes compared with non-Hispanic white women diagnosed with the same subtype of endometrial cancer and at the same stage of disease, while Hispanic and Asian women had similar or better outcomes compared with their non-Hispanic white counterparts,” added Dr. Cote. “Prior studies have suggested that disparities in outcomes from endometrial cancer might be explained by differences in tumor subtype or stage at diagnosis, but our data suggest that disparities persist, even when these factors are controlled for.”
Dr. Cote and colleagues analyzed endometrial cancer incidence and mortality data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database, including only the 120,513 cases diagnosed from 2000 to 2011.
Over the 12 years studied, endometrial cancer incidence rates increased among all racial and ethnic groups, with rates increasing fastest (at 2.5% per year) among non-Hispanic black women and Asian women. Non-Hispanic black women had higher rates of all the aggressive endometrial cancer subtypes than non-Hispanic white, Asian, and Hispanic women.
Mortality rates for the aggressive endometrial cancer subtypes were more than 1.5-fold higher among non-Hispanic black women compared with non-Hispanic white women. Mortality rates for these subtypes were similar or lower among Asian and Hispanic women compared with non-Hispanic white women.
Analysis of overall 5-year survival rates showed that non-Hispanic black women had poorer survival at every stage of diagnosis, regardless of endometrial cancer subtype, compared with non-Hispanic white women. Five-year survival rates were similar or higher among Asian and Hispanic women than non-Hispanic white women.
Causes Unknown
“It was somewhat surprising that the endometrial cancer survival disparity we identified was limited to non-Hispanic black women, because many of the challenges previously linked to worse outcomes—including low socioeconomic status and high rates of obesity and diabetes—are also experienced by Hispanic women, but that population did not have poor outcomes,” said Dr. Cote. “We are, therefore, interested in investigating whether there are molecular differences in endometrial tumors of the same subtype from women of different races or ethnicities diagnosed at the same stage of disease.”
According to Dr. Cote, a limitation of the study is that the data analyzed were from the SEER database, which meant the researchers did not have tumor samples and were unable to perform a review of the tumor subtype to ensure they had been classified correctly. In addition, SEER does not collect information on other factors that may be associated with incidence and survival, so potential causes for the disparities identified in this study cannot be further examined.
Dr. Cote is the corresponding author of the <em>Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention</em> article.
This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The content in this post has not been reviewed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Inc. (ASCO®) and does not necessarily reflect the ideas and opinions of ASCO®.
