 |
|
Racial Discrepancies in the Outcome of Patients With Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Lawrence E. Harrison, MD;
Trevor Reichman, MD, PhD;
Baburao Koneru, MD;
Adrian Fisher, MD;
Dorian Wilson, MD;
Andrew Dela Torre, MD;
Arun Samanta, MD;
Maria Korogodsky, RN
Arch Surg. 2004;139:992-996.
Hypothesis There is a marked variation in the outcome of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma with respect to race and ethnicity. Rates among African American and Hispanic individuals are elevated as compared with those among white individuals.
Design Retrospective review of a prospective database. Demographic information, clinical staging, and other defining factors, including the absence or presence of hepatitis, cirrhosis, and alcohol abuse, were analyzed by patient interviews and review of the medical record.
Setting Urban tertiary referral teaching hospital.
Patients Patients diagnosed as having hepatocellular carcinoma between July 1997 and June 2003 (N = 264).
Main Outcome Measure Overall survival rates.
Results Based on multivariate analysis, race was identified as an independent predictor of survival. While there was no difference in the distribution of patient or tumor characteristics between the 2 groups, African American/Hispanic patients had a 5-year survival rate of 12%, which was significantly lower than that of white patients (50%; P = .001).
Conclusions This study demonstrates a significant discrepancy in overall survival of African American/Hispanic patients as compared with that of white patients. The reason for this difference cannot be explained by patient or tumor characteristics or completely by treatment allocation. These data suggest that there may be socioeconomic, biological, and/or cultural determinants contributing to this observed difference in outcome.
From the Department of Surgery, UMDNJ–New Jersey Medical School, Newark.
 CiteULike  Connotea  Del.icio.us  Digg  Reddit  Technorati  Twitter
What's this?
|
