Racial disparities persist in early-stage lung cancer treatment: Study

Non-Hispanic Black patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer are 8% to 9% less likely to receive curative treatment compared to non-Hispanic white patients, according to a study published March 2 in JAMA Network Open. 

Researchers from New Haven, Conn.-based Yale University and Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center analyzed data from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program and Medicare claims to assess if and how racial disparities in the receipt of curative treatment have changed since the 1990s. 

Here are five notes from the study:

1. Racial disparities in the receipt of curative treatment for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer have persisted since the 1990s, when there was a 13% to 15% difference in receipt of curative therapy between Black and white patients.
   
   
2. Researchers analyzed data from 28,287 non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic white patients aged 66 to 85 years who received a diagnosis of early-stage non-small cell lung cancer between 2005 and 2007, 2011 and 2013, and 2017 and 2019.
   
   
3. Black patients were 9.4% less likely to receive curative treatment compared to white patients between 2005 and 2007, 8.9% less likely between 2011 and 2013, and 8.4% less likely between 2017 and 2019.
   
   
4. Between 2005 and 2007, Black patients were 13.6 percentage points less likely than white patients to receive surgical treatment. The gap narrowed to 12.7 percentage points between 2011 and 2013, and to 9.4 percentage points between 2015 and 2017.
   
   
5. When stereotactic body radiotherapy use increased between 2011 and 2013, Black patients were less likely to receive the treatment; however, the difference had narrowed by 2017-2019 to be no longer statistically significant. 

Read the full study here.