Geographic and racial disparities in late-stage breast cancer diagnoses persist among rural patients, a population already at elevated risk for advanced disease, according to a study published March 11 in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
Researchers at St. Louis-based Washington University used the American College of Surgeons’ National Cancer Database to analyze data from rural patients diagnosed with breast cancer between 2004 and 2021.
“The geographic disparities were quite striking,” Omolade Sogade, MD, lead author of the study and a Washington University physician, said in a March 11 news release from the American College of Surgeons. “Even among different rural regions across the country, a woman’s geographic residence was one important factor impacting her risk of being diagnosed with advanced-stage breast cancer.”
Here are five things to know from the study:
- Among the 52,287 rural patients included in the study, 13.6% were diagnosed with advanced-stage breast cancer.
- Compared to non-Hispanic white patients, non-Hispanic Black patients had 40% higher odds of receiving a stage 2 diagnosis, 58% higher odds of a stage 3 diagnosis and 29% higher odds of a stage 4 diagnosis.
- Hispanic patients had a 50% higher risk of being diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer than non-Hispanic white patients.
- Uninsured patients were twice as likely to be diagnosed with stage 3 cancer and nearly four times as likely to be diagnosed with stage 4 cancer as patients with insurance.
- Patients in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas had a “significantly higher likelihood” of being diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer than patients in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.
Read the full study here.
