At the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting, Soyon Lee, MPH, and John D. Seeger, PhD, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, presented their findings from a retrospective analysis on the association between race and cancer-specific survival among patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL).

Although DLBLC is among the most common subtypes of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and immunotherapy and cell-based therapy have provided additional treatment options, health disparities—such as the type of treatments received and health outcomes—are still apparent among these patients in relation to their socioeconomic status, according to the researchers.

For their study, Lee and Dr Seeger used the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) research program to examine cancer-specific mortality rates from patients who had been diagnosed with DLBCL from 2010 to 2015. The study’s sample size included 25,495 patients that were divided into four groups for the analysis: White patients (82.8%), Black patients (7.4%), American Indian/Alaska Native patients (0.5%), and Asian or Pacific Islander (API) patients (9.3%). In addition, the researchers used Cox proportional hazards regression to account for patient characteristics such as income, rurality, sex, age, marital status, and Ann Arbor stage.

The study found that the crude cancer-specific mortality rate two years after diagnosis was the highest for Black patients and API patients, which was 29% for both groups. For White patients and American Indian/Alaska Native patients the mortality rate was lower at 25% and 24%, respectively. Six years after diagnosis, the cancer-specific mortality rates increased for all groups, with Black patients having the highest mortality rate at 36%, while White, American Indian/Alaska Native, and API patients’ rates were 33%, 33%, and 35%, respectively.

However, when the researchers accounted for the differences in patient characteristics, Black and Asian patients had an increased hazard ratio (HR) of cancer-specific mortality compared to White patients (HR, 1.28; 95% CI, 1.18-1.40; and HR, 1.19; 95% CI, 1.11-1.29, respectively). For American Indian/Alaska Native patients the cancer-specific mortality HR was 1.00; 95% CI, 0.73-1.38 when compared to White patients. The authors note that there was a sample size limitation for the HR comparisons as demonstrated by the wide confidence interval.

“The study highlights various sociodemographic features at diagnosis that could reflect disparities and lead to differences in cancer-specific mortality across race groups,” said the authors.

The researchers suggest that some of these differences can be addressed at the diagnosis stage, which can lead to better outcomes for patients with DLBCL.

Source:

Lee S, Seeger JD. Racial disparities in DLBCL: analysis of SEER data from 2010-2019. Presented at: the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting; June 2-6, 2023; Chicago, IL, and virtual; Abstract e18552.