(ChemotherapyAdvisor) – Hispanic-white patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have a decreased risk for overall mortality compared with non-Hispanic whites and blacks, according to researchers at the University of Miami, Miami, FL. The study, entitled “The Influence of Hispanic Ethnicity on Non-small Cell Lung Cancer Histology and Patient Survival,” was published online on April 23 in Cancer.
The authors aimed to determine the effect of Hispanic ethnicity on the overall survival of NSCLC by conducting a large-scale, population-based analysis using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) data base.
After identifying 172,398 adult patients with pathologically confirmed NSCLC from the SEER data base who were diagnosed between 1988 and 2007, the authors performed a multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis to determine the impact of race/ethnicity on overall survival. Influence of Hispanic ethnicity on NSCLC histology or stage at diagnosis was determined by pair-wise comparisons using this regression model.
Continue Reading
The authors reported that “compared with non-Hispanic white patients, Hispanic white patients had a statistically significant better overall survival (hazard ratio [HR], 0.85; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.83–0.87), and black patients had worse survival (HR, 1.091; 95% CI, 1.072–1.109).” Furthermore, a higher percentage of Hispanic-white patients were diagnosed with the bronchioalveolar carcinoma (BAC) subtype (8.1% Hispanic whites vs. 5.5% non-Hispanic whites vs. 3.7% blacks; P<.001).
The authors concluded: “Hispanic-white patients with NSCLC had a decreased risk for overall mortality compared with non-Hispanic whites and blacks. Moreover, Hispanic patients were over represented within the BAC histologic subtype. Thus, the overall survival advantage of Hispanic NSCLC patients may be because of their predilection toward developing certain histologic subtypes of NSCLC.”
