In a scientific e-poster presented during the 2022 American Roentgen Ray Society Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Peña et al noted that American Indian and Alaskan Native populations have nearly three times higher incidence rates of lung and colorectal cancer than other ethnic groups. These patterns are influenced by factors including income, rurality, education, and transportation, the investigators reported.
Study Details
Using the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs website, wrote submitting author Miguel Peña, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, “for each tribe, we recorded the distance to their closest lung, breast, and colorectal cancer screening center and American College of Radiology (ACR) accreditation status, and if the closest location was in or out of state.”
For colorectal and lung cancer screening, the ACR’s My Computed Tomography Colonography Screening Location Finder and Lung Cancer Screening Locator Tool were used to search screening centers up to a 200-mile radius from the tribe’s zip code. For breast cancer screening, the researchers used the Mammography Certified Facilities Database maintained by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the FreeMapTools engine, an online resource, to find each tribe’s closest cancer center by zip code and match it with the FDA’s database.
Key Findings
For lung cancer screening, 76.4% (454/594) of the populations had their closest screening center within 200 miles, with a mean distance of 43.6 miles; 88.3% (401/454) of the nearest lung cancer screening centers were in-state, and only 26.9% (122/454) were ACR-accredited. For colonography screening, 63.3% (376/594) of all populations had a screening center within 200 miles, with a mean distance of 79.8 miles; 70.21% (264) of the closest colonography centers were in-state, and 46.9% (177/377) were ACR-accredited. For breast cancer screening, 93.7% (557/594) of populations had centers within 200 miles, with a mean distance of 44.32 miles; 95.7% (533/557) were in-state, and 65.5% (365/557) were ACR-accredited.
“Distance barriers may perpetuate existing disparities in cancer screening outcomes among [American Indian/Alaskan Native] tribes who face multilevel barriers to care,” the authors continued. They added that increasing access to imaging cancer screening centers is vital to advance equity and improve outcomes among this patient population.
Disclosure: The study authors reported no conflicts of interest.
