WASHINGTON (EFE).— Hospitals that serve primarily minorities are “significantly less likely” than other hospitals to provide definitive therapies for all types of cancer, according to an analysis published this week by the journal “Cancer.”
The American Cancer Society’s publication said that doctors from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts, the University of Toronto in Canada, and the University Medical Center in Hamburg, Germany, participated in the research.
In the United States, African Americans and Hispanics experience worse outcomes across a wide range of diseases, including cancer, compared with whites, the article said.
Hospitals that serve mostly minority patients “are consistently linked to poorer care, worse outcomes, and specifically in cancer, reduced access to treatment and services,” the report said.
For this study, scientists analyzed data from the National Cancer Data Bank, which accounts for approximately 70% of cancer diagnoses in the U.S., to identify patients eligible for definitive treatment of breast, prostate, lung and colon cancer between 2010 and 2019.
Researchers looked at data on nearly 3 million patients at 1,330 hospitals, 9.3 percent of whom were treated at hospitals serving predominantly African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities.
For breast cancer, the researchers found that 95.6 percent of white patients received definitive treatment at non-minority hospitals, compared with 93.2 percent of African-American or Hispanic patients at minority hospitals.
88.6% of prostate cancer patients received definitive treatment at non-minority hospitals versus 82.3% of men who attended a minority hospital for prostate cancer. For lung and colon cancer, the figures were 89.1%-83.8% and 94.7%-92.6%, respectively.
“Addressing these disparities is vital but represents only one aspect of a comprehensive approach needed to combat racial and ethnic inequalities in health care,” the article stated.
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2024-08-01 12:28:28
