Study Highlights Factors that Contribute to Racial Disparities in Prostate Cancer

A study published online in the journal CANCER highlights factors that lead to racial disparities in deaths following prostate cancer surgery.

In this study, researchers assessed 432,640 white, 63,602 Black, 8,990 AAPI, and 21,458 Hispanic patients who underwent prostate removal between 2001 and 2014. The median follow-up time was 5.5 years, and the 5-year survival rates were 96.2 percent, 94.9 percent, 96.8 percent, and 96.5 percent for whites, Blacks, AAPIs, and Hispanics, respectively.

According to the results, Blacks had a 51% higher death rate than whites, while AAPIs and Hispanics had 22% and 6% lower rates, respectively. They noted that education, median household income, and insurance status contributed the most to racial disparities. For example, if Blacks and whites had similar education levels, median household income, and insurance status, the survival disparity would decrease from 51 percent to 30 percent.

“Socioeconomic status and insurance status are all changeable factors. Unfortunately, the socioeconomic status inequality in the United States has continued to increase over the past decades,” said Wanqing Wen, MD, MPH, of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine via a press release. “We hope our study findings can enhance public awareness that the racial survival difference, particularly between Black and white prostate patients, can be narrowed by erasing the racial inequities in socioeconomic status and health care. Effectively disseminating our findings to the public and policy makers is an important step towards this goal.”